Nico Rosberg retires!!

[MGDavid]

...so that the agents and managers can take their percentage, up front if they can blag it

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

No I think that these contracts are not worth the paper they are written on . If another situation suited Mercedes they would not think twice about doing what they thought served their purpose ...
Look at Redbull and DK ...

They are legal contracts. They are worth a hell of a lot of money. As anyone who has ever tried to either get one, or get out of one knows.

Or do you think legal stuff is not worth the paper its written on? In which case, there should be a lot more murders.

[bella]

the contracts in the past haven't been particularly well written, and where there's a mutual desire to go seperate ways that seems to be respected which gives the impression that contracts aren't worth anything perhaps.

"we have a contract and that's that" can mean "we have a contract and won't be releasing him unless you're gonna trigger the buy out clause, and it's a hundred million pounds so be our guest"...

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by bella

the contracts in the past haven't been particularly well written, and where there's a mutual desire to go seperate ways that seems to be respected which gives the impression that contracts aren't worth anything perhaps.

"we have a contract and that's that" can mean "we have a contract and won't be releasing him unless you're gonna trigger the buy out clause, and it's a hundred million pounds so be our guest"...

Unless you are a contracts lawyer who has actually seen the contracts , knowing whether they were badly written is surely hearsay?

[bella]

i'm basing that on the way the contracts recognition board used to usually rule in favour of the driver trying to bail out which suggests the contract was unenforcable. for some reason i have fisichella/jordan stuck in my head but i'm not sure why. i do however read business contracts in my day job so i'm not entirely ignorant

[chillibowl]

also seem to recall some issues between Fisi, Jordan, and Flav (cant remember if it was Benatton or Renault days though).

between the contract recognition board and drivers and teams holding multiple options and contracts its always been a tangled web.

the recent Sauber incident, to me, indicates the general vagueness these driver/team employment contracts hold. one has to think this is by design.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by JamesH

They are legal contracts. They are worth a hell of a lot of money. As anyone who has ever tried to either get one, or get out of one knows.

Or do you think legal stuff is not worth the paper its written on? In which case, there should be a lot more murders.

No one would sign a contract they can't get out of, that goes for drivers and teams - they are best intentions to cover eventualities as known at the time, which can be varied/broken subject to financial penalties to be agreed.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

also seem to recall some issues between Fisi, Jordan, and Flav (cant remember if it was Benatton or Renault days though).

between the contract recognition board and drivers and teams holding multiple options and contracts its always been a tangled web.

the recent Sauber incident, to me, indicates the general vagueness these driver/team employment contracts hold. one has to think this is by design.

I think teams get round this by signing options, which are not as binding as drivers and may also be pre-contract agreements. The CRB is designed to stop drivers being fired for no reason when under contract and also drivers walking away to join another team or a better offer - but generally most of these things are decided by financial settlements - it's F1 so what else would we expect but for money to get you what you want!