Its not the norm in Formula One for drivers to be transferred to other teams whilst under contract, yet in football (soccer to US readers) this is often a means of making money on a player. A team may ring along a junior superstar at little or no expense and sell them whilst they are serving a five year contract with the club.

Formula One teams don’t often these days break contracts and further the drivers of today enjoy more long standing relationships with their teams than their predecessors.

 

 

F1 driver contracts now longer

Damon Hill was the dream pairing for the Williams team. A British driver who was the son of one of the legends of motorsport. Graham Hill is the only driver to complete the triple crown winning Le Mans, Monaco and the Indy500 and his untimely death always meant Damon would be thrown into the spot light.

Lack of funding meant Damon failed to make the usual jump from F3 racing into Formula One. He had take a longer path which saw him only join the global motorsport series at the age of 31. Having been a test driver for Williams, the dying Brabham team needed a driver in 1992 and Hill was selected.

With Patrase leaving Williams the following year, Damon was given the seat alongside Alain Prost. He drove for the team through there tragedy of Ayrton Senna’s death then finally claimed the world title in 1996. Hill was sacked by Frank Williams for 1997, something that would be unheard of today and something the founder of the team later admitted he regretted.

McLaren were the most recent team to dismiss a driver mid-contract as Daniel Ricciardo made way in 2023 for Oscar Piastri. Ricciardo was then the subject of an internal political dispute between Christian Horner and Dr. Helmut Marko.

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Ricciardo latest driver dumped

The Austrian insisted the Reed Bull junior team recruit the promising Nyck de Vries, whilst now we know Christian Horner wanted Ricciardo back in the Red Bull fold as back up to replace the ever erratic. Sergio Perez.

Ricciardo did claim the AT seat eventually following the sacking of De Vries after just 10 races in 2023 and now could be the recipient of a much improved junior Red Bull car as the team has moved to England and will collaborate more closely with its parent company to produce a car that may even challenge Alpine.

Ricciardo’s McLaren exit brought even more controversy as Oscar Piastri was prised from under Alpine’s nose to replace his Australian countryman. Piastri had a fantastic debut season, beating Lando Norris to a first F1 win as he claimed the top step of the podium in the craziness that was the Qatar Grand Prix weekend.

However, it was Norris or led the charge for McLaren and looked for all the world as he would break hi Grand Prix duck in Singapore. He was tight to the tail of Carlos Sainz for lap after lap as the race drew to a close, but ran out of tyres to overtake the Ferrari for his first ever F1 win.

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Norris worth more than “$100m”

Norris is a current F1 star and many believe a world champion of the future. Christian Horner has admitted Red Bull talked to the British driver twice about joining their team and the next day on both occasions he resigned for McLaren.

Lando is contracted to McLaren until the end of 2025, but given Red Bull’s interest he could be persuaded to leave McLaren but with a high transfer cost attached to him.

Zak Brown was asked this week whether his star driver as a footballer would be “worth a hundred million.” The media savvy Brown dodged the question claiming, “I don’t know enough about soccer to know what the economics are!”

The American CEO then revealed he believed Norris was worth even more than a hundred million. “He’s quite a valuable racing driver, a great asset to the racing team.

“There is no number that we would be interested in trading him for,” stated Brown.

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McLaren pay Lando just $5m pa

McLaren at the moment have Lando on the cheap. He reportedly has a base salary of $5m but earned $10m in performance bonuses for the season just completed – according to Forbes.

Cumulatively this would make Norris the 6th highest paid F1 driver in the list topped by Max Verstappen whose record breaking year landed him a whopping $70m including bonuses.

To continue the football analogy, with Norris three years into his five year contract, the club would usually offer a new contract starting now. The remuneration would increase significantly and another deal stretching out for five years would mean if the likes of Red Bull wanted Lando, they would pay McLaren through the nose for such a valuable asset.

However, Lando may want to understand whether McLaren have closed the gap to Red Bull significantly before signing a new deal with the team. Not withstanding, Zak Brown claims the team can afford to keep him whatever the cost.

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Brown says McLaren have whatever money is required

“The resources we have now are exactly where we need to be,” reveal the McLaren CEO. “We’re a profitable racing team, which is great. We run at the cap.

“Resources will not hold us back from achieving anything we need to achieve, drivers included.”

When McLaren finally delivered a car worth of competing at the front, Lando had just 124 races remaining in the season. He claimed seven podiums during that time including a run of five within six consecutive Grand Prix.

Ferrari turned up the heat towards the season end as McLaren looked short of one more upgrade to finish the year second quickest, but Brown believes the foundations are laid for success in the near future.

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McLaren launch livery

“Building blocks? You need the world’s two greatest grand prix drivers,” Brown insisted about McLaren’s future. “I think we’ve got the best driver line-up in Formula 1.

“We do have a little more run-way with both but certainly he’s hot property, so we’d like to lock him down sooner rather than later.

“I think he’s very much enjoying his time at McLaren.

“The dream is to win races and a world championship together and I think Lando is all-in for achieving that with us.”

McLaren already launched they 2024 livery and have raised early excitement about the promise of their season ahead.

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