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This team boss paid his team's salaries out his own pocket: 'Twice even'
Otmar Szafnauer left the competition as team principal back in 2022, however, he has certainly not disappered from the world of the competition. Indeed, with his company, Soft Pauer, he is providing various services to F1 organisations. In difficult times, Szafnauer had to rely on his money to keep his team going. In fact, in the past, he was able to pay everyone's salary at Force India on two occasions.
When Szafnauer was Force India (now Aston Martin, with Lawrence Stroll as majority owner), the team were doing anything but well financially. At the time, it was also rumoured that the team principal was responsible for paying salaries for his staff thanks to his thriving business. "Twice," he said in the High Performance podcast.
Szafnauer did not want to take the credit
Thanks to his financial situation and his companies, workers could receive their salaries. "It was in the millions. And I knew the salaries were not going to get paid. And I know how difficult that is for people. You know, some people live from paycheque to paycheque and I understand it. And I just couldn’t, we had to pay the salaries," he says.
Szafnauer also says that only a small group of people knew about him taking care of the salaries, including the finance department, of course. However, he also preferred not to take credit for helping the team, as having the public eye on him was not the reason for doing that. "No, no it’s not what it’s about," Szafnauer concluded in the podcast.
This article was written in collaboration with Ludo van Denderen
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5 October 2024
