In the upcoming season, 23 races await the drivers, spread all over the world. It requires a lot of travelling through al lot of time zones and, of course, a maximum effort is required every weekend. Being a Formula 1 driver sometimes is less glamorous than people think.
Still, they certainly shouldn't complain, thinks former driver Mark Webber. The Australian, now a driver manager and pundit, believes that drivers who say they have had to make many sacrifices are 'absolute nonsense'. Webber states that in the podcast Performance Hackers with Scott Radford & Dan Lowes.
A nice sum of money
"Let’s not beat around the bush, you’re paid a handsome sum of money to do a very, very phenomenal job," the former Red Bull driver said. "I never spoke about sacrifices. People talking about sacrifices and ‘I gave a lot up’, I think that’s an absolute load of bullshit. Because if you want something enough and you know, these young drivers have come from Australia and [they say] ‘I have all these sacrifices’… well, they aren’t. If it’s a sacrifice already then, I think you’re on the back foot."
Instead, Webber sees setbacks or obstacles in a driver's career as opportunities to step up a gear. He himself experienced this in the early years of his career. For instance, his first F1 contract was for just two races. " It was three weeks. So really brutal but I had no cards at the table. That’s how it was. So what am I going to do, spill milk or step up?"