F1 Driver Talk Strike Over Lack of Pay

[cosworth151]

According to Sport Bild, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hulkenberg, Adrian Sutil and Kamui Kobayashi are all owed back pay. Kimi is still owed for his time at Lotus. The GPDA is now reportedly talking strike.

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20140415/f1/140419901#ixzz2yyNly1KL

[Jericoke]

The house of cards is teetering.

I expect a few new sponsors to show up, all with cash to burn courtesy of a very short, very old, anonymous donar.

[Scott]

The backpay for Grossjean, Hulkenberg, Sutil and Kobi can be covered by the jar of nickels Bernie uses to balance the books when they don't work out, and Kimi doesn't belong to the union, so who cares about him. 

Like Jeri said, it will never, ever happen.  No chance, no way.  I'm not sure it will be an anonymous donor, probably more likely a bit of urging by Bernie for those teams to re-prioritize enough money to shut the drivers up...maybe even he pays them in a form of a loan to those teams.

[cosworth151]

Grosjean's can probably be handled by deducting the cost of breakage.

[Scott]

Grossjean has now been paid...

http://www.crash.net/f1/news/203314/1/grosjean-confirms-pay-from-lotus.html

[vintly]

And on his birthday too - nice pressie!

[F1fanaticBD]

I am not sure what the strike would be like, because surely it will bring bad coverage as well as make F1 a bit of a joke. But the issue is serious, the regulatory body should handle these without spilling things to the press. Can a team enjoy a race without paying racing fees? I think they cannot. Can a race organizer have a race without paying the regulatory/commercial right owners? No they cannot. So its just a matter of implementing a certain set of rules to ensure drivers which they are entitled for. But I have a feeling, they don't want to because there will always be willing drivers to succumb to non-payment in exchange for a drive in F1 car.

[lkjohnson1950]

Sir Jackie organized a strike back in the day over safety issues. Only a handful of drivers raced (maybe 6?). The Ferrari drivers dominated, but a late race incident caused bad blood between them, which many blame for causing Gilles Villenueve's fatal crash at the next race. Cossie probably remembers it better than I.

[Irisado]

You mean 1982 at Imola?  That was nothing to do with a driver's strike over safety.  That was a boycott by the FOCA aligned teams in the FISA/FOCA war, so only the FISA teams raced.

There were 14 starters and six finishers, Winkelhock's ATS was then disqualified to leave five finishers.  The controversy was that Pironi overtook Villeneuve to win against an agreement between the two that whoever was leading at a certain point during the race (this part is a bit sketchy, so please correct me if I'm wrong) would win.  Villeneuve was leading in the closing stages, Pironi overtook him, and it caused a lot of bad blood which carried over to Zolder and Villeneuve's fatal crash.

For those interested, the results (with grid position in brackets) were:

 1 Pironi - Ferrari (4)
 2 Villeneuve - Ferrari (3)
 3 Alboreto - Tyrrell-Cosworth (5)
 4 Jarier - Osella-Cosworth + 1 lap (9)
 5 Salazar - ATS-Cosworth + 3 laps (14)
DQ Winkelhock - ATS-Cosworth (12)
 nc Fabi Toleman-Hart 52 laps (10)
   r Arnoux Renault 44 laps-engine (1)
   r Giacomelli Alfa-Romeo 24 laps-engine (6)
   r Paletti Osella-Cosworth 7 laps-suspension (13)
   r Prost Renault 6 laps-engine (2)
   r de Cesaris Alfa Romeo 4 laps-electrical (7)
   r Henton Tyrrell-Cosworth 0 laps-transmission (11)
   r Warwick Toleman-Hart 0 laps-electrical (
 
This race also saw Osella achieve their highest ever finish in a Grand Prix, and was the scene of Salazar's highest ever finish in Formula 1.