F1 News thread! - 2009

[Loz]

Well quelle surprise

Silverstone given British GP hope

Silverstone has hosted the British Grand Prix continuously since 1987
Silverstone may be handed a new long-term contract to host the British Grand Prix as doubts increase over Donington Park's capacity to stage the 2010 race.

Donington boss Simon Gillett said on Monday he had been given another two weeks to provide financial guarantees.

Full story here

There's a surprise

[Pax]

It's at times like this, I'm disgusted to find myself thinking "Come on Richard Branson, throw a couple of million out of umm patriotism or something."

The thing is, I've just moved 120 miles to within 10 miles of Castle Donington, to find that the MotoGP is gone and now the F1 probably ain't gonna make it. Brilliant .

[burty]

Published in advance of this weeks final F1 race: EXCLUSIVE: F1 drivers' $130m pay day for 2009 - Sport - ArabianBusiness.com


DRIVER SALARIES FOR 2009

1. Kimi Raikkonen $45m
2. Lewis Hamilton $18m
3. Fernando Alonso $15m
4. Nico Rosberg $8.5m
5. Jarno Trulli $6.5m
6. Sebastian Vettell $6m
7. Mark Webber $5.5m
8. Jenson Button $5m
9. Robert Kubica $4.5m
10. Heiki Kovaleinen $3.5m
11. Nick Heidfeld $2.8m
12. Timo Glock $2m
13. Giancarlo Fisichella $1.5m
14. Sebastien Buemi $1.5m
15. Rubens Barrichello $1m
16. Jaime Alguersuari $0.5m
17. Vitantonio Liuzzi $NIL
18. Adrian Sutil [Rent a driver]
19. Romain Grossjean $NIL
20. Kazuki Nakajima $NIL

[Dingbat]

DRIVER SALARIES FOR 2009

1. Kimi Raikkonen $45m

What? For winning the WDC two years ago and only one race (Belgium) this year, while being dominated by his team mate?

Sure there isn't a decimal point missing?

[Yambo]

What? For winning the WDC two years ago and only one race (Belgium) this year, while being dominated by his team mate?

Sure there isn't a decimal point missing?

+1. He must have one hell of a manager.

[Byker28i]

And now the scramble starts to ensure we have a british GP.

Doesn't matter to Bernie though, just who offers the cash (or hasn't upset him once, a long time ago). Never mind that we've had two successive british champs, a lot of the teams/technology is here...

[J40ADF]

It annoys me that we can't seem to come up with the funding for a British GP given that, as previously stated, we have had consecutive world champion drivers and alot of the teams are based here.
It would have been sad to see it move away from Silverstone had Donnington been able to secure the funding.
As a business Silverstone need a reasonable contract with the poison dwarf in order to make the investment required to the facility.
Damon Hill is not going to commit to spending obscene amounts of money to make facility improvements required if Silverstone is to be only seen as a 'stop gap'. Thats business!
Sadly the poison dwarf does have the advantage of being able to sell to the highest bidder.
Lets hope that this is not the case and they can come up with a reasonable solution.
These things tend to sort themselves out.

[Yorick]

Published in advance of this weeks final F1 race: EXCLUSIVE: F1 drivers' $130m pay day for 2009 - Sport - ArabianBusiness.com


DRIVER SALARIES FOR 2009

1. Kimi Raikkonen $45m
2. Lewis Hamilton $18m
3. Fernando Alonso $15m
4. Nico Rosberg $8.5m
5. Jarno Trulli $6.5m
6. Sebastian Vettell $6m
7. Mark Webber $5.5m
8. Jenson Button $5m
9. Robert Kubica $4.5m
10. Heiki Kovaleinen $3.5m
11. Nick Heidfeld $2.8m
12. Timo Glock $2m
13. Giancarlo Fisichella $1.5m
14. Sebastien Buemi $1.5m
15. Rubens Barrichello $1m
16. Jaime Alguersuari $0.5m
17. Vitantonio Liuzzi $NIL
18. Adrian Sutil [Rent a driver]
19. Romain Grossjean $NIL
20. Kazuki Nakajima $NIL

Is there a list for bike racers ?

[Indraneelan]

+1. He must have one hell of a manager.

No, he must have one hell of an employer

I can't figure it, Lewis Hamilton is the current World Champion and possibly the most marketable men in England. Is Finnish interest worth so much more to the sport?

[BillyBob]

No, he must have one hell of an employer

I can't figure it, Lewis Hamilton is the current World Champion and possibly the most marketable men in England. Is Finnish interest worth so much more to the sport?

Might be an inflated salary to buy him out of his Ferrari contract.

[Moon]

No, he must have one hell of an employer

I can't figure it, Lewis Hamilton is the current World Champion and possibly the most marketable men in England. Is Finnish interest worth so much more to the sport?

Lewis signed his contract years ago though I think which is effectively for life so thats why his contract is relatively low

[Yambo]

No, he must have one hell of an employer

I can't figure it, Lewis Hamilton is the current World Champion and possibly the most marketable men in England. Is Finnish interest worth so much more to the sport?

It says it's a 2009 salary which is being paid by Ferrari iirc. I doubt he negotiates his own contract so I guessed his manager got him a good deal. Finnish interest was presumably worth that much to Ferrari. I think he'll take a pay cut for 2010.

[DanDangerous]

Toyota have just announced they're pulling out of F1 (according to Aunty Beeb) That'll probably be Koybayashi's drive gone then.

[burty]

Toyota have just announced they're pulling out of F1 (according to Aunty Beeb) That'll probably be Koybayashi's drive gone then.

According to this report he's 70 - 80% likely to have a drive next year. (whatever that means).

Toyota the latest to join Formula One exodus - Auto Trader F1 powered by planet-f1.com