LEWIS HAMILTON’s new £100M ($152M) deal has "not even come into effect but it has already been criticised" by former FIA President MAX MOSLEY as "absurd," according to Daniel Johnson of the London TELEGRAPH. Not content with "condemning the huge budgets" of F1’s teams, Mosley has now "taken aim at multi-million pound driver salaries at a time when several teams are struggling financially." Mosley: "It is absurd. All the driver worries about is what he earns compared with the other guy. If I was a dictator in the sport, each team would have the same money and you could spend more on the driver or less on the car or vice versa" (TELEGRAPH, 6/1). In London, Kevin Eason wrote the extreme pay of the top few drivers is "thrown into sharp relief by the struggle elsewhere in the paddock, with so-called 'pay' drivers asked for as much" as £10M ($15.2M) to "fund a season with a back-of-the-grid outfit." That is helping to "create a crisis for talented youngsters, who cannot break through to the top level without funding." McLaren CEO RON DENNIS traveled to Denmark last week with driver KEVIN MAGNUSSEN and "appealed to businessmen in the country to get behind him to help pay for a seat on the grid." Dennis: "When teams are choosing between these young drivers, unfortunately it is not only about their talent. It is also about the support they have from companies or countries. Kevin will succeed with or without your help, but it's just a much bigger challenge for him when his opponents are young people from countries with huge support" (LONDON TIMES, 6/1).
