Boullier fears big money spending

Formula One has always been a very long game of musical chairs.

Formula One drivers have always jostled for moves up and down the pit-lane, once one door closes for someone that then opens the door for one driver, which inevitably opens a door for someone else and so on.

The most recent example of this was Lewis Hamilton’s move from McLaren to Mercedes, that deal affectively retired former seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher as he lost his seat at Mercedes, but opened the door for Sergio Perez to move from Sauber to McLaren, which then handed Esteban Gutiérrez his first opportunity in Formula One when he was promoted at Sauber.

Another example would be Sauber opting to partner Gutiérrez with Nico Hulkenburg, which left Kamui Kobayashi without a drive in F1 in 2013, but gave Adrian Sutil the chance to return to the sport by taking his seat at Force India back after being replaced by Hulkenburg twelve months previously.

The same goes on amongst team-members but of course these moves are not usually as high profile as the drivers, although quite often they are usually a lot more key to a teams future and development.

For example which departure would affect Red Bull more? The loss of three-time Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel or the loss of chief technical officer Adrian Newey?

Whilst Vettel might be seen as potentially one of the best drivers of all time, he wouldn’t be in the position he is without the work of Adrian Newey a man who has won nine F1 Constructors Championships with three different teams.

Thankfully for Red Bull neither Adrian Newey or Sebastian Vettel are on the move as far as we know, but at other teams very influential people have been moving on.

McLaren technical chief Paddy Lowe recently agreed to join Mercedes. McLaren’s first move was to try and pouch Lotus’s James Allison.

The prospect of teams making big money moves for engineers as well as drivers frightens Lotus team boss Eric Boullier, who believes a money war would be bad for the sport.

‘I think it’s insane to create a money war, when you start to pay your people crazy money, Formula 1 is very risky, it’s very demanding, it’s very exposed. There are big salaries in Formula 1 and most of the time, in every field actually, higher salaries than in any other industry. But what for? he told Autosport Magazine.

‘For me the company comes first, not fighting for a couple of hundred thousand pounds to keep an employee.’

‘In Formula 1, because of the media exposure, we tend to put a couple of people onto the radar, James certainly is not the only employee. We have 150 employees and most of the ideas don’t come from James Allison.

‘James obviously is a real asset for the company, but if tomorrow James was leaving, the company would survive. It’s not a drama.’