Force India may offer drivers bonuses to avoid crashes

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In the round-up: Force India CEO Otmar Szafnauer says the team is considering offering its drivers financial incentives to reduce the chance of them crashing into each other.

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The Alonso-to-Williams rumours make sense to @Peartree:

I gather from Massa’s comments that he’s definitely not staying at the team.

I don’t think the Alonso rumours are that ridiculous. I think the rumours might also explain why the Williams seems to have stopped development.

With someone as such as Paddy Lowe and also the right engine and good pedigree, add that to Alonso and you can have a good partnership.
Pennyroyal tea (@Peartree)

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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33 comments on “Force India may offer drivers bonuses to avoid crashes”

  1. When you have to offer bonuses so your driver’s don’t hit each other. I wish my mom would have offered my brother and I bonuses so we didn’t hit each other when we were kids.

    1. That sounds like backwards team management. It suggests they cannot or will not engage directly with wither driver to tell them to cool it. It hints at a complete breakdown in communication.

      Rewards for not doing something wrong is a last resort.

      1. FI were talking about sitting drivers out of a race if there were anymore incidents a few days ago. This suggests to me that at least one of the driver’s contracts don’t allow FI to replace them as punishment.

    2. @jamiejay995
      They’re just removing the incentive to disobey team orders, seems logical to me.

      1. Sundar Srinivas Harish
        31st August 2017, 1:45

        Actually, it’s more like giving an incentive to work as a team, something other teams call a salary. To me, this indicates that Force India have absolutely NO control over their drivers.

        1. And you needed thisto say they have absolutely no control?

          1. Sundar Srinivas Harish
            31st August 2017, 10:16

            Should’ve phrased it better. Force India admitting that they have no control.

    3. Yeah, I must be missing something. I would hope they have some meaningful leverage within the contracts to help the control their drivers.

      1. In fact, if my driver squeezed his teammate on a straight I’d bench him for a race.

        Unfortunate if their contracts prevent that.

    4. My mum offered us bonuses, well incentives actually. If you don’t hit your brother I won’t kick you both in the nuts. I can see that working at FI. Simples!

    5. My boss gave me daily a 10% bonus just for being on time.

      They forgot to tell me though that he deducted 10% from my annual salary when calculating the base ;)

    6. I think both drivers have fairly robust contracts in place. Perez was off to Renault so that would have given him a strong negotiating hand and Ocon belongs to the Mercedes program so maybe there is an engine incentive attached to him.

      But yes, it’s pretty clear that both are at least a little bit untouchable and that’s why we have the current situation.

  2. Force India drivers – Hit men in reverse.

    1. @bullmello Very funny.

      I don’t agree with cotd @peartree Somebody just informed me that the McLaren Renault deal is going to be a thing. Maybe that’s going to settle Alonso.

  3. I thought rewards would mean something like first claim to a new front wing or rear wing, a performance reward, not a financial reward. Kind of like in F1 racing games. Surely, that is more of a driver than extra money!

    1. Great idea but probably unenforceable through contract terms

      1. Probably no less unenforceable than the benching/parking of drivers. Plus any team that signs a contract about when drivers get upgrades or what order doesn’t deserve to be in F1, that should be an on-track performance decision not contractually who’s turn it is. And at this rate though, break the contracts and send them packing. No contract has ever been written that can’t be broken or trashed, and I guarantee there is a conduct clause in both for termination of services. Neither one is moving on and Perez just keeps making himself look worse and worse for top teams. Ocon isn’t much better but at least his is usually the PR complaint of airing dirty laundry. Perez just keeps thinking the track is all his and clipping is turned off in the racing sim.

  4. Hopefully the battle and the animosity between Checo and Esteban will continue. It’s good theatre and a relief from the boredom of DRS passing snoozefests.

  5. I don’t think Alonso to Williams makes sense at all. He keeps saying that the only thing that drives him, is his hunger for a third world title, but as long as Williams are a customer for a manufacturer, they’ve got no chance. Strangely, I think McLaren are a step closer to winning the championship than Williams are – they have fewer obstacles in the way. The biggest is obviously the Honda engine, but once they get that fixed, as long as their chassis is good which it seems to be, they should be right up there. Williams conversely could have one of the best chassises (something which they are struggling with) but once they threaten their parent team, they’d be reigned in.

    1. You mean he’s got no chance, not they? Alonso is not in position he was when he left Ferrari. Unless he agrees to get 20 mln who is going to be old to be competitive when their car start winning races. In either case, he has to cut his payment wishes if he wants to move to another team. But he will remain at McLaren if they continue to pay further, no matter what engine they get. He is not stupid, the McLaren and Honda is.

      1. One thing people seem to miss is that it’s the sponsor that pays most of a drivers contract, specifically Alonso, so it’s not a problem to afford a driver and that’s why I believe in Alonso’s words when he says he’s been offered many seats, and he’s rejected half of them already.

  6. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    31st August 2017, 8:07

    Unless Williams are still bound by Martini’s ludicrous ‘we need a driver over 25’ rule, I think they will end up with the poor man’s Alonso (Sainz). Alonso to stay put out of desperation unfortunately.

    1. ludicrous ‘we need a driver over 25’ rule

      It’s so ‘ludicrous’ that it’s even law (or voluntary industry code) in many countries :p

      PS – there is a loophole in some industries/countries (e.g. USA beer industry) exempting “generally recognizable athletes, entertainers and other celebrities who are, and appear to be, of legal drinking age.“.
      PPS Not sure of Stroll passes that test ;)

      1. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
        31st August 2017, 14:51

        There is not a 25 year old age limit on being an F1 driver.

  7. Alonso to Williams? Have to assume Laurence Stroll has agreed to kick in another $20 million per year to pay for Alonso, along with the $35 million per year he gives the team to buy little-Lance his seat.

  8. 2018 McLaren to Renault
    2018 Toro Rosso to Honda
    20?? Red Bull to Honda when Honda gets their act together.

    All makes sense in the end.

  9. Keith – I tried responding to your thread on the forum, but not sure it went through:

    “Funny you should say that, Keith, I had a similar conversation with my girlfriend (a new fan) at the start of the race. The conversation went something like this:

    Me: “Amazing start from Fernando – up to 7th!”
    Lauren: “That’s brilliant, go on, Fernando!”
    Me: “Only a matter of time til he’s passed, though..”
    Lauren: “Why? Don’t be so negative!”
    Me: “No, no.. it’s the DRS here. It’s so long. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

    And with that, he was picked off one-by-one. Cue me ranting about the art of defensive driving being completely gone in modern F1. Half of a truly great driver’s skill-set is null and void. What a sham(e).”

    1. It’s true, Spa should have only had DRS along the start finish this year and left the kemmel straight alone.

      However, generally DRS has enabled cars to get close and set up for a pass at a later point more this year than previous, which is what it was originally intended to do I think. I think it’s working better than previous years.

      1. Further to this:

        Brawn pushing to lose grid penalties, DRS

        https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/grid-penalties-end-brawn-drs-947189/

        Best F1 news story i’ve seen since Bernie was booted.

    2. @ecwdanselby was there at spa and had the exact same reaction, plus the vivid feeling he would not finish the race …

    3. He would have been picked off almost as quickly with that Honda in the back without DRS. Pick a better scenario to blame DRS but passing a Honda on top end just isn’t it.

  10. Can you just imagine Alonso and Stroll in the same car?

    1. It would have to be a two seater…

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