McLaren’s Jenson Button not happy with varying super licence fee – Formula 1 news
Jenson Button of McLaren thinks that it is unfair that drivers have to pay different fees for their super licence in order to drive in Formula 1.
The present regulations set by the FIA require a driver to pay the licence fee according to the number of race points scored in previous season. The decision on the Concorde agreement still remains to be finalised but the FIA had recently announced a new
rule regarding the entry fees to be paid by each team to enter the championship next year. It was settled that this time the winning team of the current season will be paying $6,000 for each point scored along with the basic fee of $500,000 which itself has
been increased from the $399,800 of the current season. Every other team will be paying $5,000 per point with the basic charge.
While teams are trying to adjust around this new money hike, Button has expressed his own concerns about the licence fee.
“Personally I don't feel that we should be paying different super licence fees for different drivers and different point situations,” Button said. “I mean, when you get your licence to drive on the road, because you do more miles you don't pay more for it,
do you? And you don't pay more for a licence in any other category because you've got a better car or whatever, so it should be a flat fee.”
The driver is the winner of the 2009 F1 championship which was the year when the FIA increased the super licence fee varying with each player. Button admits that it was the worst time to win a championship as he spent more than quarter of a million Euros
on his licence to continue racing for Formula 1.
On the other hand, the president for FIA, Jean Todt, insists that the new regulation which requires richer F1 teams to pay more money than the smaller teams is a very fair. He thinks that the concept is similar with the super licence fee. He admitted that
the drivers deserve to win but when you are earning high amount of money, you are capable of paying a high amount as well.
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