Formula 1 respects the rich. Drivers regularly pay for their seats, and others can’t stand to make it to the best without forking out millions.
As Lewis Hamilton himself asks, will he be the last “average workers driver”?
Hamilton has four world titles, and an expected total assets of £130m. He’s the just a single of 20 ebb and flow Formula 1 drivers who can review a period in his childhood when he lived in a chamber level with his dad, who at one point maintained four sources of income to enable him to race around the nation in his go-kart. He says: “Having funding and support behind you opens more doors. If you want to be picked up by the top teams and go into their feeder programmes, you need to be racing with the best of the best and if you haven’t got the money, you’re going to be overlooked.”
Circumstances are different in Formula 1: group spending plans have extended, ubiquity in racing has developed, and getting seen by supports is harder, yet what amount does it cost to arrive? The Hamilton family energy enabled Lewis to be the principal blended race average workers driver to venture inside the rich rise of Formula 1, and maybe the last.
He says: “When individuals ask me where the following me is originating from, I say: ‘No, these children originate from well off foundations, not from the battle I originated from.
Formula 1, says: “There’s only 20 people in the world who can be on the grid so the likelihood of that happening for me is slim.
“It would even be too expensive for me to race in Formula 3 if I made my way up through the ranks.”
The 14-year-old continues: “I’d have to win a big event in a [British karting] Super One race to even get noticed by sponsors. If I did that I could get spotted and go from there.
“Unless you get lucky, there isn’t a high chance to get where sponsors are looking if you’re not wealthy.”
“It goes to the basics of how the sport is represented. There are such a significant number of viewpoints that are not being handled. There are just rich children coming through. There are not kids from common laborers families.”
Which is a miserable reality as costs rise year on year from karting to the best, making it selective for the individuals who can pay the intemperate sticker price – which can extend from several thousands to more than £1m.
