Former F1 team boss Otmar Szafnauer h😼as revealed he wa🤪s forced to pay Force India’s salaries on two occasions.

Szafnauer was a key🐟 figure at Force India, initially joining the Silverstone-based outfit in 2009.

Under his leadership, F𝔍orce India moved up the field and became an es🎃tablished midfield team..

Despite being the smallest team on the grid in terms of budget and facilities, Force India out-performed their resources, often picking up podiums in the mid 2010s with 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Sergio Perez.

It wasn’t plain-sailing for the team though with Force India entering administration in 2018 before Lawrence Stroll’s takeover an🐬d later rebrand to Racinಌg Point.

Speaking 🐼on the High Performance podcast, Szafnauer detailed why he had to use his own money to pay the team’s salaries.

“Twice,” he revealed.

He then added: “It wasn’t that much.”

Before revealing: “It was in the millions.”

Shedding light on the situation, Szafnauer explained: “I paid it with the help of my partner at Soft Pauer. We h﷽ad money in the business. I had my own money. And I knew the salaries were not going to get paid, and I knew how difficult that is for people.

“Some people live paycheck to paycheck, and I understand it. We had to pay the salaries,💞 and the Formula 1 money was coming in five days’ time. So say the salaries are due on a Friday, and we’re getting the Formula 1 money the foll༒owing Wednesday.

“So I could have waited, not paid on Frid♚ay꧂, or paid with my own money and then waited until Wednesday to get that money back from when the Formula 1 money came.”

Szafnauer conceded it was a “huge risk” but outlined that his decision to ensure the sa𒈔laries were paid were importan𝓰t for team spirit.

“In between that Friday and the Wedne🐈sday, there’s a huge risk of, well, what if that money doesn’t come?” Szafnauer added. “Or what if that money does come, and somebody else knocks on the door 🧸and says, ‘Hey, you owe me $2 million, and unless you give me this money, I’m shutting you down.’

“So that was five, six, seven days of, ‘What if?'” I knew that the team did well because of the tꦐeam spirit, the camaraderie we had — the looking after each other.

“There was only 400 of us, or 408, or whatever it was at the end. And at th💦e time, we’re competing with teams that had no budget 💙cap, right? That had 13 [to] 14,000 people.

“We had 400 and a £90 million budget. The others h🌳ad a £250✨ million budget.”