Quote:
Originally Posted by chillibowl
to add to this discussion, Horner talking about having to replace staff due to cap restrictions and concern about the risk of it becoming 'a race to the bottom'.
while he certainly has a valid point, the moving of top level talent to other teams (ostensibly smaller teams not operating at the edge of the cap) could also be seen as a positive for F1 as ideas may now spread more quickly down the grid hopefully resulting in an overall healthier grid?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/r...-cap/10482536/
“Rob was as focused on other projects in recent years, and the offer that McLaren made is probably half their cap! So you can't blame him for wanting to go and do that.”
“You have to make sure it's not a race to the bottom,” he said. “The problem is you have long-standing personnel that have contributed a significant amount that you don't want to see forced out of their roles because of the cap, just because you can justify 10 youngsters versus an experienced hand. |
Interesting article. I was reading it and was going to drop in that same last quote. My take on that is... If you can replace one person with 10 less experienced people, get the same quality and amount of work and do it for less... Someone is being overpaid already!
I can only speculate, but I can imagine that to some degree, F1 is one of those industries in which those at the bottom of the pyramid might actually be paid less than market value while those at the top are well compensated, maybe overly compensated. That is because there is a level of (not sure of the word)... "status" to be working in F1. I know that in other industries such as fashion, or video game design, if you are in a lower level position, you can be treated like a dog because you are just "lucky to be there" and you have to "pay your dues" before you reap any financial benefits. Also, these types of industries have a heavy "lifestyle" component which ends up being part of the non-financial "compensation".
Anyhow, I digress. I think it is not a race to the bottom, but for the well funded teams a race to someplace lower than where they have been. I think this is just pain that is felt by those who previously had effectively unlimited budgets and could generally buy whoever they want.
I DO think this will deflate the earning potential of many of the lower top tier. Those who are not in the top three who are excluded, but those just below them. Those folks will likely feel extreme pressure to move elsewhere in which they might end up higher on the food chain than where they might currently be. Also, for the teams who are moving some employees into "non-race" positions and then counting only a percentage of their time toward cost capped activities, I can imagine that might not be exactly what they want to do. So they might see a position in another team that promises full time race related positions attractive.
Richard