When F1 pay drivers were actually amazing

when f1 pay drivers were actually amazing f1 pay drivers get quite a lot of criticism for being in the sport just purely because someone paid for them to be there i mean formula one isn't cheap and there's always been a sport where you need financial backing of some sort to get to the top modern day paid drivers are nowhere near as bad as what we saw 30 years ago in fact this video is all about drivers who paid their way to at least get a debut in formula one and turned out to be pretty damn good to some degree every driver is a paid driver bringing their own sponsors to the team but not all paid drivers are the same some drivers take their personal sponsors from team to team allowing them to pick and choose where they race some have their seats paid for by another team as part of their development on loan or some just plain buy their way into formula one with a big chunk of cash let's take a look at some standout names which you could put under the term paydriver airton senna much of ed and cena's early career was possible due to his privileged childhood as the son of the wealthy sao paulo landowner and factory owner milton de silva helping him to afford his way through carts and junior series back home however after moving to the uk in 1981 to continue his career he was under pressure from his parents to return to brazil to take up the family business before he left he was offered a formula for 2000 drive for the cost of 10 000 pounds which may not seem like a lot now but back in the 1980s that's serious wonga airton took up the offer and returned to the uk with big sponsors from berners the bank of rio de janeiro state and paul a jeans factory covering his costs from there he went on to win the british and european for 2000 championships in 1982. even when he made his way up to f1 with tolman in 1984 and later with lotus mclaren and williams the major driver linked sponsors stayed the most iconic of these was the brazilian bank banco nationale which supported him from 1985 to 1994 and was unusual as the only mclaren driver to display non-team branding on his overalls during this era nikki louder arguably the most famous and unique pay driver in f1 history three-time f1 champion nikki louder decided to take the phrase putting your life at stake a bit too literally after his career stalled in sports cars louder wanted to make the step up to formula 2 in 1971 and fortunately for him march's f2 car was available to the highest bidder or to someone with enough funds to keep the struggling team afloat in an incredibly crafty and genius move louder managed to sign with them before he'd actually got the money together where the cost of the drive was just over twenty thousand pounds he eventually managed to pull enough support together from different sources including a bank loan from ersta oyster rice okay i'm just gonna call them bank number one and topped it off with an advertising deal with oyster rice spa casa which again i just cannot say properly and i'm sorry but they were a leading austrian bank quickly promoted to a combined f1 and f2 campaign for march in 1972 bank number one were happy with the extra exposure it brought them and agreed to back him for another season yet no sooner had the deal been signed to the tune of 100 000 pounds it was broken off after his grandfather who was no fan of his racing ambition got the bank to withdraw their support to bring the lad back to his senses i can only imagine the fireworks that went off in that family forced to find some way to pay for the deal louder contacted another bank the reifs and casa bank bank number two i'm going to call them ever persuasive he eventually got them to agree to give him a loan in exchange for having their branding on the car and crash helmet problem was because the risk of death and then not being able to repay the loan was so high in racing the only way he could finalize the deal was by securing the money against his life insurance unfortunately for him that f1 season the car was catastrophically bad and he struggled at the back of the grid with his debts continuing to mount up louder knew he had to risk it all if he wanted to make it into formula one by some miracle he was able to pay 80 000 pounds for a seat with brm for 1973. the way he did this is pure genius he gave the team the impression that the bank would continue to finance his seat despite that not actually being true he then scheduled the sponsorship payments and loan repayments in three installments he'd cover the costs of the first installments with his starting salary and he hoped by the time the second installments would be due he'd already be a star in the making allowing him to renegotiate the loan talk about risking it for the chocolate biscuit in a stroke of luck this turned out to be true his reputation was on the rise especially after running third at the monaco grand prix before his gearbox failed eventually he'd been so impressive that when his brm teammate clay regazzoni rejoined ferrari for 1974 he spoke so highly of louder that they signed him as well and most importantly they paid him enough to finally clear his debts from there he went on to achieve 25 wins three world championships and became the first and so far only world champion to come out of retirement and win the title not bad for a pay driver eh hold on a second i see you sat there not subscribed to this beautiful wtf1 youtube channel well please do click that red button because we have an amazing f1 season coming up with brand new regulations and we are going to be putting out so much content so please do subscribe love ya michael schumacher it's mad to think that my goat the greatest of all time michael schumacher actually started his f1 career as a pay driver after working his way up through karting he came to the attention of car manufacturer mercedes-benz who financed the young lad through german formula ford and formula 3. jochen near spack mercedes competitions director then decided to create their very own junior team consisting of the top three in the 1989 german f3 championship heinz howard franson karl vendlinger and unsurprisingly michael schumacher himself instead of taking the traditional route through formula 3000 up to formula one schumacher and the others joined their world sports car team in 1990 with michael continuing to impress this proved to be handy when only a year later jordan f1 driver bertrand gasho was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for aggravated assault this left his team boss eddie jordan without a driver 10 days before the 1991 belgian grand prix the search was on with the boss wanting to bring in the 1982 world champion kk rosberg despite the fact he'd retired five years earlier their attention eventually turned to the little-known 22-year-old michael especially as michael's manager willie webber told jordan a bit of a porcupine that had drifted at spa around 100 times before which was a complete lie michael had never driven there following a test at silverstone that cost michael and mercedes 80 000 pounds eddie jordan wanted michael to pay for the privilege of racing for them to the tune of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds niersbach wasn't keen on the idea having already been in talks with benetton about a potential seat for 1992 something which would come to light a few months later however not wanting to miss out on the opportunity and planning to rejoin f1 in the near future mercedes-benz guaranteed the 150 000 pounds for the seat with advertising disguise through their sponsors decora and tic-tac to avoid a clash with jordan's ford powered engines eddie jordan even admitted that the reason they took schumacher over other options was the money mercedes-benz were willing to pay although his f1 debut didn't quite go to plan retiring on the first lap with clutch problems he had showed his potential already he had outqualified his experienced teammate the cesarous by seven tenths of a second the following 307 starts and seven world titles shows that not all paid drivers are bad fernando alonso despite a strong junior career fernando alonso would never have gotten his f1 career off the ground without the financial assistance of one flavio briatori spotting his potential as a future talent the renault boss helped provide the necessary funding to secure him a role as menard's test and reserve driver in 2000 before moving him up to a race seat with them the next year even though the team were uncompetitive the funny thing is fernando alonso's teammate for that year tarso marks was actually paid a five-figure sum to be fernando's teammate that year so really he was the real paid driver of the team eventually alonso was promoted to a renault racing in 2003 and went on to become a two-time champion for the team becoming the youngest f1 world champion at the time now rather than paying for a seat it's the spaniard's talents that did the talking the money followed him rather than the other way around for example when alonso joined ferrari in 2010 spanish bank santander hopped on board as well it just proves that most drivers need a helping hand to get their big break we now move on to honorable mentions these four may not have an f1 title to their name but they're still pretty good drivers sergio perez it's strange to think of sergio perez as anything but deserving of his seat but when cheko made his f1 debut with sauber all the way back in 2011 the mexican was immediately labelled as a pay driver this was no surprise since around the age of 14 he's had the backing of mexican billionaire and telecoms giant carlos slim with tailmax sponsoring the team to the tune of 26 million dollars per year as of 2022 mr slim is reported to be the 15th richest person in the world with a worth of around 73 billion dollars the deal wasn't purely telmex money though more a group of mexican companies that pulled together but it was all under the telmex umbrella perez's move to mclaren in 2013 wasn't particularly well received as the pay driver label stuck when he was dropped for kevin magnussen at the end of the season it was hailed as a victory for talent over cash yet his time at forced india and racing point proved that despite the money he brought cheko was more than just a pay driver continuing to extract performances out of the midfield car perez and the team were celebrated as underdogs for their achievements on a much smaller budget than many of their rivals sergio's funding helped keep the team alive and competitive and when the team went into administration in 2018 checo's decision to start legal action saved the company allowing lawrence stroll to purchase it and turn it into the aston martin team we see on the grid now interestingly despite perez's move to red bull recently his big sponsors are still there you can catch the names inter proteccion infinium claro telcel and telmex dotted all over their livery they may not have been a factor in christian horner's decision but they always sweeten the deal rubens barrichello seen as the next hotshot brazilian driver after airton cena rubens barrichello gained support from food company orisko during his junior days which stayed with him throughout his early f1 career funnily enough though his debut came courtesy of the same team that gave his future ferrari teammate michael schumacher his first f1 start jordan eddie jordan had already had the future seven-time champion slipped through his fingers after his debut in 1991 and was looking to bring the next new talent up through the ranks impressed by his progression through the junior series jordan gave rubens his own f1 debut in 1993 age 20 thanks to the two million dollar backing provided by orisko he eventually went on to race for stuart ferrari honda braun and williams across his 326 races taking 11 wins and 68 podiums he also held the record for the most race entries until kimi raikkonen overtook him at the 2020 eiffel grand prix something which shows he had the talent deserved to stick around on the formula one grid not just the money mark webber fernando alonso wasn't the only driver flavio briatori helped to get their start in formula one at the time the benetton team owner gave mark webber his first shot as the team's test and reserve driver for the 2001 season when the opportunity arose to race for minardi in 2002 his manager briatori once again assisted him even if he did complain that the aussies did nothing to support weber though that wasn't actually true his sponsors ron walker and telecoms company telstra provided the backing to get mark his breakthrough and brought his personal aussie sponsors fosters on board good call his initial contract was just the first two races in 2002 but they managed to get him a full 17 grand prix deal that season webber later went on to take nine wins and 42 podiums finishing third in the drivers championship on three occasions in 2010 2011 and 2013. not bad for a number two driver there you have it a look into when f1 pay drivers were actually pretty damn good who's starting f1 most surprised you and does that change your view on pay drivers in formula one let us know in the comment section below [Music] [Music]

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Keywords: wtf1, f1, grand prix, hamilton, vettel, ferrari, mercedes, highlights, formula 1, verstappen, red bull, f1 2020, albon, norris, leclerc, russell, formula one, gasly, lando, niki lauda, lauda f1 career, ayrton senna, michael schumacher, fernando alonso, pay driver f1, f1 pay driver, mark webber, what is a pay driver f1, what is a pay driver, senna f1 history, niki lauda f1 history, niki lauda history, f1 driver, f1 2022, 2022 f1, formula 1 2022, funny f1, f1 funny

Id: 0SdclddGbLc

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 13 2022