Originally Posted by RC45
Actually they are paid specifically for their marketing cache and potential advertising revenue. They are just whores to the advertising industry 
Skill has little to do with pay level. And teams need the ad-revenues to float their budgets.
How many times has a "big name" been signed vs the "talented guy" |
you got confused now, skill got them to motorsport as a result of their skill sponsors starts to "support" them and push them to biggest market (f1 for example) step by step and along the road fans starts to follow them and more and more sponsors wants to jump on the wagon and driver get more money as a result,
risk is in "job description" but it's not the main thing as you pointed out earlier. And yes skill has
something to do with it becouse untalented drivers don't last long and sponsors usually don't find them profitable.
big name drivers are also very short lived in F1, Piquet Jr. for example got in to renault becouse he was "good" in lower ranked formulas but mostly becouse his daddy pulled some connections, guess what, he is pretty terrible, guess what else, his is about to get fired.
@nthfinity
I agree they are overpaid, but every top athlete, driver, ...(or whatever) is, how much money does Tiger Woods get for "just playing golf"?