{"id":20678,"date":"2014-01-14T07:09:07","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T12:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=20678"},"modified":"2014-01-14T07:09:08","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T12:09:08","slug":"departing-valsecchi-not-paid-by-lotus-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/departing-valsecchi-not-paid-by-lotus-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Departing Valsecchi not paid by Lotus in 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

As fears about Lotus’ health grow, 2013 reserve driver Davide Valsecchi has revealed he has not yet been paid by the Enstone based team.<\/p>\n

\"Davide-Valsecchi-2\"As reigning GP2 champion, 26-year-old Italian Valsecchi served last year as Lotus’ reserve driver, but he admitted last week he is now likely to exit.<\/p>\n

“After a 2013 season in which I travelled a lot but did not get on the track, I want to go back to wearing overalls and a helmet,” he had said.<\/p>\n

When Lotus overlooked him late last season as Kimi Raikkonen’s replacement in favour of Heikki Kovalainen, Valsecchi admitted the decision made him “angry”.<\/p>\n

“I thought that, in their choice, my willpower would prevail over a driver like the Finn, who is at the end of his career,” he told the Italian website f1passion.it this week.<\/p>\n

Valsecchi admits he is likely to leave F1 because powerful pay-drivers “such as the Mexicans or Venezuelans” have priced drivers like him out of the market.<\/p>\n

“I don’t conceal my desire to get into Indycar,” he said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, there are real fears among Lotus’ fans about the health of the Enstone based team.<\/p>\n

Although highly competitive, the black and gold outfit finished last season amid headlines about its elusive Quantum buy-in deal, and now Lotus has been only conditionally listed on the 2014 entry list.<\/p>\n

The very latest news is that team CEO Patrick Louis has resigned.<\/p>\n

It is believed Lotus, having lost Kimi Raikkonen to Ferrari because the Finn wasn’t paid, is struggling to raise its more than $2 million FIA entry fee for 2014.<\/p>\n

Now, Valsecchi has admitted the team has failed even to pay his small 2013 salary.<\/p>\n

“According to my contract my salary was like that of a waiter,” he revealed.\u00a0 “They haven’t paid me yet.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure that as soon as they’ll be in a position to do so, they’ll solve their debt.”<\/p>\n

Valsecchi said the Kovalainen affair made him angry and “bitter”, but he trusts Lotus to eventually pay, revealing the team has “always behaved well towards me”.<\/p>\n

“I’m very grateful to Lotus for having chosen me as third driver, without asking anything in return.\u00a0 I can’t complain,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Try to look for a job as third driver without paying a single euro!\u00a0 We’re talking about a team that could sell a seat for at least two or three million euros.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As fears about Lotus’ health grow, 2013 reserve driver Davide Valsecchi has revealed he has not yet been paid by the Enstone based team. As reigning GP2 champion, 26-year-old Italian Valsecchi served last year as Lotus’ reserve driver, but he admitted last week he is now likely to exit. “After a 2013 season in which …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[2120,3],"tags":[2399,5262,5300,5340,152,306,4720,4701],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20679,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20678\/revisions\/20679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}