Sorry for the following random points ; feel free to take teh good and ignore the rest!
1) How can you guarantee that the fastest GP2 driver gets a shot at F1 unless all the cars are identical????
2) Pay drivers in any series are a symptom of the problen they are not the cause. In F1, unless you somehow add a cost cap and / or distribute the F1 commercial cash much more fairly in the first place then some teams will be "spent" out of existence. So, if you stop "pay" drivers you will kill some teams. (NB I'd also clarify that to me a "Pay" driver could in fact be getting "paid" very handomly but if they bring in more deals and sponsors as part of their package than they are being paid to drive then effectively they are subsidising the team i.e. paying. So I'd imagine Massa at Williams is a nett Pay driver but when at Ferrari he probably was not.
3) given that a team continuing in business is more important to it than exactly whom it employs it is self evident that until you get cost caps / better income distribution some teams will select drivers based on cash and not only talent.
4) I think people are getting hung up on a league idea of progression and promotion for driers that is simply illogical - let me put it in footballing terms; if Joe Smith is playing for Doncaster Rovers at 16 but is seen by a Chelsea scout who thinks he's the next Rooney (no groans please) do you expect Joe to say "no thanks" to the kind offer from Mr Abramovic so that he can
earn the right to play in the Premier league by staying with Doncaster till he's 19 and deserves his spurs (not a football pun!)..... Of course he'd not do it ; he shoot off (and another non-football pun) to Chelsea and make good use of the better training facilities, better physios, coaches, and the better opportunites to further his own career. Drivers are like that too - they will go off to the team that they think is their best option. But they can alter the equation in their favour by taking sponsorship too and that helps to balance the equation in their favour. And to take the line of thinking further if Chelsea see a kid in Argentina they will not blink before grabbing him for their team - so why should an F1 team not do likewise and hire a driver from anywhere if they may gain a precious 1 or 2 tenths advantage or 5 or 10 million that helps the designers get a 1 or 2 tenths improvement....
5) What about Mr Brabham building and driving his own car or Jaques V enticing BAR to fund a whole new team for him.... Everyone uses the advantages they have whether obvious or not.
6) Red Bull drivers programme is to me actually a good thing because they (presumably) are reviweing all their drivers over a number of years on a pretty even basis knowing excatly how they work behind the scenes and considering who they think is the best fit for Red Bull ; much more balanced than "Have you got £ 5 Mill - right you can drive on Saturday?" and probably better than just grabbing some hotshoe who's had a few good showings before chucking him a year later (e.g. Sergio Perez)
7) Finally Life (and F1) just aint fair..... get over it...
Random blethering but hopefully some of it made sense.
