F1 News & Discussions > General F1 Discussion

Racing for wealthy

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Monty:
As I have said previously, my kids raced against Lewis in Karting. To be fair, Anthony Hamilton worked incredibly hard to fund Lewis. I know he had more than one job and he told me once that money intended for family holidays had been diverted into the 'racing' fund. Anthony was fanatical about getting Lewis into top-level motorsport. I suspect that was part of why his marriage failed.
Even back in those days my wife and I could see that with the level of budget we could afford, our kids would never progress beyond racing for fun. Most of the successful kids had family money and the families tended to be business owners rather than humble employees like me.
If you visit a track for almost any of the progression series you will note the number of Ferraris, Bentleys, Astons, etc. parked around the car transporters. The sport is dominated by the very wealthy. The only 'grass roots' motor sports are the one make series and shifter karts. Where the driver is often also chief mechanic., There are some very skillfull drivers in these series but they rarely get the breaks they deserve. I cannot see how this will change because there are so few good seats available; and there are still enough wealthy drivers prepared to pay for them. And when we are talking about 'wealthy' we aren't talking about tens of millions like the earnings of successful F1 drivers, we are talking about corporate billions like Mazepin, Stroll, Latifi

John S:
I feel there's also a need to address nepotism in motorsport as well. Look through any single seat series and you'll find very many offspring and relatives of former F1 racers. Some use their own money to further juniors career, however too many rely on the inside track to access sponsors and present team backers. 

 

Dare:

--- Quote from: John S on June 07, 2021, 03:52:41 PM ---I feel there's also a need to address nepotism in motorsport as well. Look through any single seat series and you'll find very many offspring and relatives of former F1 racers. Some use their own money to further juniors career, however too many rely on the inside track to access sponsors and present team backers. 

 

--- End quote ---


Same in Indycar. You have sons and grandsons racing
now. Wonder how many could have been greats don't
get the chance. At least Marco A finally had the sense to
figure out he's not that good.

Alianora La Canta:

--- Quote from: rmassart on June 07, 2021, 06:21:25 AM ---Going slightly off topic, I do agree it's really worrying that both academia and the arts are increasingly off limits for the poor. The UK government's decision to reduce funding for arts degrees is terrible.  There's also law and architecture where my understanding is that you need to work a year or two for free to learn the ropes, in some of the mot expensive cities in the world to get a good head start.

--- End quote ---

A city near me is trying to do something about the law situation, by having a paid internship scheme for new law graduates. Definitely doesn't address the situation nationally, nor help with the arts.

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