Felipe Massa has said that drivers' salaries should not be among the areas to come under scrutiny as F1 teams look to reduce costs.
Ferrari star says drivers' wages only a small part of total costs
Felipe Massa has said that drivers' salaries should not be among the areas to come under scrutiny as Formula One teams look to reduce costs.
The Ferrari driver, who finished runner-up to Lewis Hamilton in this year's World Championship, earns an annual salary believed to be in the region of £8million.
His team-mate, 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, reputedly earns at least three times that sum.
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali recently proposed that teams should look at reducing driver earnings in a bid to cut expenditure.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Massa does not agree with his boss, telling a UNICEF press conference in his native Brazil: "I'm not inclined to it."
He explained: "In a competitive sport like this, the driver plays a fundamental part, and the cost of the drivers are small compared to the total budget of the teams.
"The more people work to reduce costs, the better it is going to be for everybody."
Not interested
Teams recently agreed a package to reduce costs for coming seasons, the need for action heightened after Honda cited the global economic turndown for its decision to pull out of the sport.
One proposal was to introduce a standardised engine, an idea that was watered down when manufacturers agreed to run with restricted power units from 2010 rather than with engines from an independent supplier.
Massa welcomed the move, saying of an enforced standard engine: "I do not find this idea interesting.
"The fight to diminish costs is important, but a standard engine gets away from what F1 is all about - and it cannot happen.
"A Ferrari running with another engine - that is not a Ferrari. It is the same for Mercedes, Toyota or Renault."
