[St Charles Owl]

Good luck to him!! Comparing austerity measures to what goes on in industries that make a ton of money is not really relevant, giving him half this amount won't see any changes to the ordinary man in the street anyway. F1, like football, is a rich sport that is able to pay top dollar for the best employees, no measure of hardship in our lives will change that. Improving the quality of life for the majority of the population is down to the government and the policies it brings in, its not the responsibility of F1, football or any other industry to change it for the whole population. I accept they can adopt fair wage policies within their own organisations and make sure they give good benefits to their employees but I would guess that Mercedes F1 team pay pretty good wages to all their staff anyway.

Rather than target the sports stars who earn big money, I would prefer to see campaigns aimed at raising the minimum wage to at least the living wage level for everyone, a move like that will help the poorest paid in our societies without affecting anyone else on the pay ladder!! Over here in the San Francisco Bay Area, many cities are bringing in minimum wages that are up to $6-7 higher than the government or state levels just because they think its the right thing to do, that should happen more at company level and county/city level anyway. I work for a company that refuses to pay minimum wage even to its "lowest" employees, the starting wage here for the most menial work is still at least $5/hr above minimum wage for San Jose, encouraging companies to be more responsible is the way to go.