Villeneuve in Pay Cut Shocker!

By pitpass.com
April 3 2003

It's reported that Jacques Villeneuve is considering dropping his much-publicised pay demands in 2004 and settling for a performance related deal, whereby he would be paid purely on his results.

This is a system that has been used in the past, most notably by Nelson Piquet with Benetton in the closing stages of his excellent career.

Villeneuve is currently one of the highest paid drivers in F1, believed to be on $22m for the last year of his 5-year contract with BAR, during which time he has netted 33 points.

According to Autosport magazine, Villeneuve's manager Craig Pollock told Canadian reporters last week that any new deal Villeneuve signs will be performance related, though the Scot admits that this would be extremely risky for the former champion since a car that is unreliable would end up costing him serious money.

Since David Richards replaced Pollock as team boss at BAR he has made no secret of the fact that he is unhappy seeing a large slice of the team's budget going into the pockets of the former champion. Whether Jacques stays at Brackley, which seems unlikely, or moves elsewhere, it's clear that the days of the bumper pay-packet are over, unless he can deliver the goods.

That said Pollock is convinced that his charge still has something to offer the sport.

"To me, Jacques has something to finish in F1," he says, according to Autosport. "He has quite a few years left," adds the Scot who is now running his own CART team, which had led to widespread speculation that if the Canadian fails to find the right F1 seat for 2004 he'll return to the series where he first made his name.

This article was written by pitpass.com and is used with permission.