Drivers' wage cut not the remedy, says Massa

Felipe Massa has rejected calls for Formula One teams to slash the wages of their drivers to try to reduce costs.

The Ferrari driver is believed to earn around £8m a year, while his Scuderia team-mate Kimi Raikkonen is reputedly paid at least three times that sum. Ferrari's sporting director, Stefano Domenicali, recently floated the idea of teams reducing driver earnings to cut expenditure in a sport acutely affected by the global economic downturn and has already lost one of its prime movers with the withdrawal of Honda earlier this month.
However, Domenicali's views are not shared by Massa, who finished runner-up to Lewis Hamilton in this year's drivers' championship. "I'm not inclined to it," Massa said when quizzed about the plan at a Unicef press conference in his native Brazil.
"In a competitive sport like this, the driver plays a fundamental part, and the cost of the drivers are small compared to the total budget. The more people work to reduce costs, the better it is going to be for everybody." Another idea is a standardised engine to cut top teams' costs, which in 2008 were on average around the £300m mark. The proposal was watered down recently when the major manufacturers agreed to run with restricted power units from 2010 rather than with engines from an independent supplier, a move welcomed by Massa.
"I do not find this idea interesting," Massa said of the standard engine formula. "A standard engine gets away from what F1 is all about. A Ferrari running with another engine – that is not a Ferrari."
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JENSON BUTTON’S Honda team could be saved from Formula One’s scrapheap — by a former taxi driver!





Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has emerged as the frontrunner to buy it after visiting the factory last week.



Slim, 68, started out driving cabs before making a £55billion fortune from telecommunications.



And that makes him the world’s second richest man behind American investor Warren Buffet.



A Honda source said: “His helicopter was too big for the heliport so they had to clear the car park for it to land.



“But his crest was on the side of it so everyone knew who it was.”



The Honda F1 team was put up for sale at a knock-down price this month by its Japanese parent company because of the crisis in the car industry.



Former BAR boss David Richards was in the Middle East this weekend looking for backers to put up the £150million needed to run the team this year.



And Force India chief Vijay Mallya has also expressed an interest along with a Swiss hedge fund and Greek shipping tycoon Achilleas Kallakis.



But the Honda source added: “A lot of people at the factory are worried about Richards or Mallya taking over.



“People think Mallya will just cherry-pick the best bits for Force India.



“And how can Richards say he wants to take over the team when he is asking the government for money for his Aston Martin company.”



Honda chief executive Nick Fry said: “We have had a high level of interest in the team since Honda announced their withdrawal from Formula One.



“Work on the build of our 2009 car continues to ensure our objective of being on the grid at Melbourne in March will be achieved.”

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