10 crazy F1 contract stories

What happens when F1 contract dealings go wrong? In this list we look back at 10 stories of F1 contracts that spiralled into the public domain, from traditional silly season negotiations, to moves that didn't happen, a salary that surprised a team's parent company, drivers making demands, and one man who seemed to create contract dramas everywhere he went during his F1 career. Let us know which stories would make your list in the comments.

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#Formula1

[cappeb]

Not on the list but Kimi's contract with Lotus is still the weirdest one for me. I still cant belive that someone at Lotus legal team thought that it was a good idea and wouldn't backfire or anything. (For those that dont know Lotus offered Kimi a 50000 dollar bonus for every point that he scored. Well 2 years later he had scored 390 points and earned almost 20 milloin dollars almost bankrupting Lotus)

[sameermohideen]

Everyone else: Fights for contracts.
Kimi: Gets paid by Ferrari to stay home...

[kiranbabu]

Bruh, Kimi's career is honestly the best. Stay fighting at the top for 90% of your career without any pressure.

[hannesgroesslinger]

My favorite F1 contract story is not about a driver but about an engineer:
(at least this is a story that i have heard a couple of times, i have no sources to back it up and am not 100% certain this actually happened, but it seems too good not to share)



Gustav Brunner was technical director at Minardi in 2001, and was offered the same position at Toyota for 2002. The salary Toyota offered was higher than what he got at Minardi, but Brunner felt that given Toyota's mighty budget and the much higher responsibilities that came with that, he should be paid a lot more than that initial offer. So he negotiated for a considerably larger number.
While Toyota raised their offer quite a lot, they simply were not willing to match the number Brunner felt to be acceptable, so he almost walked away from that deal.


Only after several weeks of negotiations Brunner realized that while he assumed they had been talking about annual salary, Toyota was actually talking about monthly salary. So all the numbers were actually 12 times as much as he had assumed. Even the first offer was higher than what Brunner really was asking for, and by now he had raised his price a lot higher than that.


He took the job and became one of the best paid non-driver personalities in F1 at the time.

[maxleitschuh]

The best story I've heard was the story of Roberto Moreno getting the Benetton drive in late 1990. He went to the Benetton factory to do them a favor (sit in the mock-up of the 1991 car to help with seating position), hoping to use his time there to beg them for a test drive in 1991. When he got there, the team immediately offered him a race seat for the last 2 races of 1990, since one of the team's drivers had just gotten injured in a helicopter crash! When Moreno called his existing team EuroBrun to get out of his contract, EuroBrun told him the team had folded that morning!

Moreno promptly finished P2 in his first race with Benetton, and they then signed him for 1991.

[sota_]

Fun fact, Bianchi and Sutil also had contract to drive Sauber in 2015

[vivas]

Kimi was paid to stay home....
That's what we need for people still working

[Dennizzz]

Being too French is a valid argument not to want to do something.

[patrickracer]

Let's be honest, Sauber signed like 20 drivers for the 2015 season, I think at one point I was linked to one of the seats and I've never even been to Europe

[xwarped]

“Who is this Edward Irvine?” That made me pinch the upper part of my nose.

[OsellaSquadraCorse]

And another: Michael Schumacher leaving Ferrari. Common assumption is that Raikkonen replaced Schumacher; however for those of us who properly remember, Raikkonen was signed to partner Schumacher, as a Di Montezemolo power play to move the team's focus away from the Todt-Schumacher axis, and give him more control.

Schumacher then understod that Massa was not to be retained, and; rather than race alongside Raikkonen as a competitor, and see his friend Felipe booted out, he chose retirement - even specifically stating it at Monza:
"In terms of timing, the decision I thought it was fair to find a moment that Felipe has a chance to decide his future because I think he is a very great guy. He has been doing a very good job for the team, very supportive, a really great teammate.
“There is a moment for him to decide his future and there is no point for me to take my decision any later than his decision had to be taken."

Massa was later signed to a 1-year extension for 2007.

[TheVeenmeister]

Senna always wanted to have the best car. That's why he changed teams to Williams. In 1993 McLaren was thinking about to use Lamborghini engines. There was even a white mule car with extended chassis to fit that engine. That performed so well that Senna tought he would even be able to go up against Williams that year. The Lamborghini engine provided McLaren with about 70 more hp, was more stable, and easier on the tires. Reliability of the McLambo was a bit of a thing. The engines tended to blow up in a spectacular way!
Never the less Senna wanted to race that car in Japan. Possibly knowing that he would not finish. But he wanted to leave Prost in the dust while his car was working. But Ron Dennis chose to stay with Ford for the remainder of the '93 season.
So Senna leaving the team was partially because of the inferior Ford Cosworth engine and knowing to late that Peugeot would be the next works engine supplier. In between there was no faith in that McLaren would be able to fight for the Championship. In the end "car wise" he made a good decision. McLaren wasn't able to compete until 1998 with Mercedes engines.
We all know where it unforunately ended as the '94 Williams was such a handful to drive.

[alexjomain]

Ferrari : Kimi, you'll be paid to stay home
Kimi : OK, but will i have the drink ?

[SamuelSantos_]

I find it ironic that Michael Schumacher was so livid about Jordan putting team orders on his brother, considering Michael spent much of his career benefiting from team orders. 🤔🖕🏼

[Trihawk]

Hamilton in 2012 was offered a really low amount like 5m iirc from Ron saying its the best he can get if he wants to continue winning. Then Merc offered 25m? Then Ron countered with 30m but Hamiltons mind was already made up.

[szczecom]

There's another Ayrton Senna contract story with McLaren/Williams back in 1990. While he was negotiating McLaren's contract for 1991-1992 he spoke wit Frank Williams also. Frank wanted to sign Ayrton so much he said to his 2nd choice Mansell to wait when Senna give him a final word. At the end of the day Frank found out Senna used their deal as a bargain to get more money from McLaren and he signed with Nige.

[Blackout_]

3 drivers at Sauber actually were 5 (maybe 6) drivers at Sauber:

Ericcsson
Nasr
Van der Garde
Sutil (who was in a similar position as VDG but didn't sue them)
Bianchi (who signed the contract before Japan 2014)
Gutierrez (even tho I'm not sure if he actually already had a contract or if they just told him he's fired very late in 2014)

[AlexanderdePooter]

If Damon Hill only knew how good the 1998 Adrian Newey designed McLaren was. Might have provided him another world title..

[lvks]

Kimi got a double-figures sum to stay at home in 2010. Massa had a lower salary than that sum.


With Lotus, Kimi had a base salary + bonuses related to points. It seems that Lotus didn't expect Kimi to score so many points in 2012 and this is one of the reasons why they weren't able to pay him. I wonder if he ever got that money back.

[ForestKicks]

Michael Schumacher getting upset over team orders lol