What to do when you're given the boot, despite an employment contract?
https://racer.com/2019/12/05/pruett-...-vs-realities/

Drivers have two realistic avenues to pursue when a Hinchcliffe- or Bourdais-like situation presents itself, and only one will work in their favor. There’s the nuclear option with trying to get one’s job back through blackmail, which involves chronicling all of the misdeeds, lies, and bad behavior they’ve endured, and threatening to expose the team owner through the media. Bringing shame and embarrassment to a team owner, and the team’s sponsors, by going public might sound like a sharp tactic to consider, but it’s a career killer.

Whatever sympathy might be curried among fans would pale in comparison to the reaction from the rest of the team owners, who’d have to wonder if they’d be on the receiving end of the same public humiliation if things went sour with the driver in question. Forget whether a driver has the right to reveal all the ways they’ve been wronged by a team owner; do it once, and you become a threat.

The second option, which has been taken many times, involves being muzzled for money. Air your grievances to the world, and you won’t receive a penny of what you’re owed. Keep your mouth shut, stay off of social media, and you might be able to negotiate a 50-percent buyout.

Facing the need to pay mortgages, private schools, support parents or siblings and cover all the other monthly drains on a savings account, most drivers bend the knee and take whatever settlement they can get. The uncomfortable dance is the best outcome most drivers can hope for when they find themselves with a contract in hand and someone else’s name on the car they were meant to race.

The silence from Hinchcliffe and Bourdais reveals another uncomfortable reality with racing contracts. In a form of the sport that lacks a union for its athletes, there’s no leverage to apply when you’re benched in favor of a new prospect, or get cut to keep the budget from turning black to red.

A worrying precedent has been set with Hinchcliffe and Bourdais. If you’re a driver whose appearances in victory lane have been far too infrequent, or your finishing position in the championship has been underwhelming, don’t look to that multi-year contract as your savior next September when Team X announces it has hired someone younger or wealthier as your replacement.

 

Racing is a business and top tier drivers are no different from any other employees or independent contractors.

When you get paid money it comes with restrictions many times.

They took the money so they have to deal with the situation they are in. No different from any other business.

 

Hinchcliffe’s situation has a rare twist to consider; with a valid contract, the team has offered to pay his salary

Then he is doing the right thing by laying low and looking for another opportunity--racing or not, he's getting paid.

Article doesn't say if Bourdais' situation is the same. If so, see above. If not, what LV said.

Gary

 

Jeebus! Is this article making a pitch for race car driver's unions?!?!?

If both sides are following the terms of the contract they signed then it is what it is like any other contractual agreement. Want to keep your job then get better results not a union.

 

Amen. Cry me a River they made great money, team wants to move on. Go get another ride. If you can’t then find another employer just like the rest of us. There are no guantees in life.

 

Agreed.

I find Pruett's writing to be tough to read at (most) times. His personal opinion always clouds what he writes IMHO. Not to get political, but he also looks and reminds me of Michael Moore.....

 

No different from just about any other form of employment, owners control the cash and terms.

 

+1

What a tool

 

They can always go run with ChumpCar ChampCar.