Verstappen's manager calls F1 driver salary cap 'total idiocy'

Raymond Vermeulen, the man who looks after the interests of reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen, calls the idea of a salary cap in F1 for drivers "total idiocy".

Last year, in a bid to reduce the sport's costs, Formula 1 introduced a sliding scale mandatory budget cap under which teams must operate.

The threshold started at $145m in 2021 and has fallen to $140m this season, with the cap further reduced to $135m in 2023.

However, in addition to such items such as power units and marketing and hospitality costs, drivers' retainers are also excluded from the budget cap.

Although contracts are confidential by nature, various reports put Lewis Hamilton at the top of F1's best paid drivers list, with an estimated retainer from Mercedes of $40m a year, while Verstappen clocks in just behind with an estimated $35m a year disbursed by Red Bull.

In the past two years, the topic of capping drivers' salaries has been regularly tabled at various meetings of the F1 Commission.

An aggregate figure of $30m per team that would comprise the retainers of both an outfit's drivers has reportedly been debated.

Rumors of a salary cap applied to drivers drew a strong reaction at the time from seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

"I do think that the sport, the drivers here, are naturally the stars of the sport," Hamilton said back in 2020.

"They're the ones that are seen, they're the ones that bring their brands, and their reputations help elevate the sport and help it travel globally around the world."

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Unsurprisingly, Raymond Vermeulen, who takes a cut from every deal he delivers to Max Verstappen, be it a new mega contract with Red Bull or an endorsement deal with a personal sponsor, is vehemently against drivers being imposed a pay cut by F1.

"Total idiocy," Vermeulen told Dutch daily De Telegraaf.

"Drivers increase the value of a team, and to then give whoever you buy that value from - the driver - a limit, it would turn the world upside down."
"Take a look at the facts. A Grand Prix came to the Netherlands thanks to Max," argued Vermeulen.

"Zandvoort pays an annual amount to FOM to organise the race, a large part of which is divided among the teams.

"So they benefit from that. It would then be very strange if you were to limit only the driver’s earnings model."

Vermeulen added that Red Bull - who are rumored to have accepted to fork out a cool $53m annually as part of Verstappen's five-year contract extension that was signed earlier this year - are also clearly against limiting a drivers' pay day.

"They are also very firm that they will never support it," he said. "It's a bad idea for the sport.

“You need these investors and sponsors who invest in talent and want to be associated with that driver for a long time.

"A salary cap would affect the entire sport."

Arguing the other side however is Alfa Romeo team boss Fred Vasseur, who believes that drivers' salaries and the contracts of a team's top brass should be included in the sport's overall cost limitation measures.

"This will probably be the next topic on the table," said the Alfa Boss. "It has to come together between drivers and key personnel for sure.

"I think it’s the right approach to try to coordinate it with the budget and to have perhaps an allowance for this.

"You could overshoot the limit and you will have to take part of your budget cap, I don’t know, but we have to find something like this because it’s important for the sport.

"And I think at the end of the day that it makes also sense for the competition. I’m more than pleased to go into this direction.

"F1 is in a very good shape today, it’s in good shape because the show is going up and also because the FIA and the FOM took the right decisions in the last couple of years but I think that we have to continue in this direction."

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