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Monday February 9, 2009

F1 drivers slam ‘unfair’ licence price hike

LONDON: Formula One drivers hit back at the sport’s governing body on Saturday in a row over the increasing cost of the mandatory super-licence they need to go racing.

The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA), some of whose members are multi-millionaires, said in a statement that the hike was unfair and accused the International Automobile Federation of using them as a revenue stream to fill holes in the FIA budget.

The row dates back to last year when the FIA increased the cost of a licence from ‚1,690 euros to ‚10,000 with each point costing a further ‚2,000 compared to 447 in 2007.

The charges are due to increase further in line with inflation in 2009.

The GPDA said that would cost McLaren’s world champion Lewis Hamilton, who is not a member of what is effectively a drivers’ union, US$270,000 for his licence this season.

The GPDA has advised drivers to hold off signing this year’s licences pending further talks and said it wanted to clarify the situation after FIA president Max Mosley dismissed the complaints as ‘nonsense’.

”The proposed increases are inherently unfair, both in the way they were introduced and they way they impact on individual drivers,” it said, adding that the costs were opposed unanimously by the drivers.

Mosley made clear to reporters this week that he felt the drivers had little to complain about at a time when the world was suffering its worst downturn in more than half a century.

“In the present climate, somebody who is earning several million a year and doesn’t want to spend one or two percent of that to get a licence for his trade is not going to get a lot of sympathy,” he said. — Reuters

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