Button’s camp have been publicly scathing of Brawn GP’s failure to return their man to somewhere in the region of his old £8 million salary in the wake of the team’s double success this year.
Brawn won both the driver’s and constructor’s titles despite not even being born until March when Ross Brawn completed his management buyout of Honda F1.
Button took a voluntary pay cut of over 50 per cent – to roughly £3m – in order to stay with the team last winter and the understanding, at least from Button and his advisors, was that his salary would be returned to pre-Honda levels if everything went well on the track.
But Brawn said: “We can offer a higher proportion of driver freedom and that will probably be the route we will go. Jenson has some freedom for his own endorsements but has a commitment to meet our obligations.” Telegraph.co.uk
But McLaren can both match Button’s pay demands and cut him enough freedom to cash in on his own marketability.
And Button already has control over his image rights under the terms of his current, £3m Brawn contract anyway. Daily Mail
Button, 29, has yet to sign a new contract with Brawn for next season but has said he wanted to stay with the newly crowned champions.
Although driver salaries are coming down as teams cut costs, Button wants his pay restored to something more appropriate to a world champion - likely to be in the region of £8m.
Brawn said last month that he was “99 per cent certain” that Button, who has also been linked to Mercedes-powered McLaren in what would be a line-up of British champions with Lewis Hamilton, would stay with his team. Yahoo! Eurosport
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