Formula One is big business, and as such only big money is associated with the sport. But there is such a thing as exorbitant amounts of money. The FIA, governing body of the F1, has raised its pricing for superlicences the drivers need in order to compete.
Last year FIA demanded Euro 1,500 plus Euro 250 per point scored from last years competition but this year the prices have been bumped up to Euro 10,000 base fee plus Euro 2,000 per point! Defending champion Kimi Raikkonen has received a bill for Euro 230,000 (110 points) rather than Euro 29,000.
Surely Kimi could easily afford this crazy amount of money, but not everybody is so fortunate to have multi-million Euro deals. Take Robert Kubica for instance, he has received a bill for Euro 88,000 or one tenth of his yearly income.
Result is that the drivers are contemplating a strike, or so goes the rumor, at the sold-out Silverstone UK Grand Prix! The 80,000racing fans will surely be extremely disappointed and its questionable whether F1 could survive yet another big blow after the Mosley affair and the tire fiasco a few years back at Indy.
British F1fanatic points out that the Grand Prix Drivers Association has gone through a strike before, namely at the 1982 South African GP at Kyalami. Where Burnie Ecclestone remarked: “We have been watching Ferraris for fifty years. Ferrari has had God knows how many drivers. They come and go but still all that people want to see is a Ferrari. They cannot see the bleeding driver anyway! Really, I ask you, what asset are they?”
