'Difficult' for drivers to accept pay cuts amid crisis - Button

Jenson Button believes it would be "difficult" for the sport's top earners to accept a pay cut to support their team's efforts amid the financial impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Formula 1 is at a standstill, with no clear date for when the racing will resume. The prospect of a calendar potentially cut down to less than 15 races implies a significant loss of revenue for the sport's constituents.

Such a fallout will hurt the top three teams but could literally destroy the weakest members on the grid.

Speaking on a Sky F1 Vodcast on Tuesday, Sky consultant Karun Chandkok argued that drivers should perhaps take a pay cut if they perform in significantly fewer races than their contract calls for.

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"I think this conversation is going on up and down the pitlane," Chandok said. "At the end of the day, if you look at it from a driver's standpoint, if they're not doing their 22 races of work that they were meant to be doing in the contract, there's an argument to say that they should be paid less.

"I'm sure they don't see it that way and their managers don't see it that way, but I think at this point they've all got to be team players.

"If Guenther Steiner is going to go to the drivers and say 'look boys, we're going to get a little less money here from sponsors or the promoters, I need you guys to play ball a little bit', and come to some sort of settlement, I can't see the drivers saying no."

For many, common sense and sheer decency should encourage Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel to wave a portion of their massive retainers in times of technical unemployment. And the argument is perhaps even more compelling for the smaller teams, where every dollar counts.

But Button suggests that financial solidarity does not come naturally to drivers.

"It is a tricky one," said the 2009 F1 World Champion. "You have six or seven drivers who are earning big, big, big money.

"The rest of the grid aren’t and obviously some drivers are bringing in money through sponsors and getting paid that way. But there are a few that are earning an extreme amount of money.

"It has grown even since I was racing in F1, that’s in four or five years.

"It is a lot of money. But it is always difficult.

"You’ve been offered this contract with this amount of money and to turn it down and say I’ll take less for the team…

"It should be happening, but it is a very different way of thinking for the drivers."

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