Former double world champion Fernando Alonso has taken a £4million pay cut to help his Renault team meet the cost of staying in Formula One. The Spaniard is believed to have accepted a revised salary of about £8m ahead of Sunday’s opening race in Melbourne.
Team-mate Nelson Piquet, already one of the grid’s lowest earners, will now be paid just £250,000. The cuts follow Dutch insurance company ING recently announcing they will end their title sponsorship of Renault at the season’s end.
It makes the Renault pair the latest victims of the credit crunch, which has already seen Britain’s Jenson Button agree an annual reduction from £8m to £3m to help Ross Brawn’s management buy-out of the former Honda team.
