Proper Racing Drivers Must Not Become Charity Cases

Why are professional racing drivers so obedient, and so subservient?

Why is it so that RedBull can play games with the highest calibre humans on earth, and keep those great individuals hanging on their every word like lost children.

Don’t let this become you

In other words why are racing drivers allowing themselves to be made so weak?

And to whose whim are these great humans subject? A bunch of business owners and bureaucrats?

I’m afraid so, yes.

I know it’s the way of the world, money makes the world go round and all that…

BUT

To me it makes no sense at all, the ranking of people has got terribly mixed up, I will try to illustrate the point.

Let’s look at recent examples when a young driver, in essence a tremendous warrior who has really laid everything on the line and in the prime of life full of strength and vigour, is on the verge of being replaced. That driver starts to feel the vibe and is getting the little hints and warnings - the little digs in the media from a team owner or the head of driver selection or whatever.

Why doesn’t that driver get on the telly and say this:

“Seeya, I’m not standing for this BS - you don’t get to tell me from behind your desk that I need to ‘perform’. GFY, I’m gone - and sue me over your contract, I couldn’t care less - I am above you, I choose the car, you don’t choose me!”

Now you might say - well that driver will have just suicided their career, they will never get a chance again.

My answer is so what? Why doesn’t honour override the petty concerns of careers and money. Where is the self respect of a sovereign individual?

I know the practical answers to these questions, but how has it become so that drivers have been put in their place by very basic people who know how to make money?

Well, it’s a little more complex and deliberate than it may seem. It wasn’t that long ago when racing drivers were more selective about who they raced with. And I think the racing industry got smart, and organised itself in order to defeat racing drivers getting a bit too big for their boots.

How Did F1 and the Racing Industry Successfully Subordinate Drivers