Wilson worth his place in team, insists Minardi head

The head of Minardi, Paul Stoddart, insists it is wrong to class the British driver Justin Wilson as a Formula One "pay and go" driver – even though he had to bring £2m sponsorship to the team.

The 24-year-old Sheffield racer was guaranteed a seat in the Minardi for the 2003 campaign after coming up with the money to boost Minardi's meagre budget compared to other outfits on the grid.

But Stoddart claims Wilson is worthy of the seat, declaring: "I think its perhaps wrong to call them 'pay' drivers. We have a situation where, because of the amount of drivers that don't actually have anywhere to go next year, I had at one point 21 names on my list of very talented individuals.

"We made no secrets of the fact that we needed budget to guarantee that we were going to be competing in Australia and every other event next year.

"We made it clear that no driver would get a seat in the team unless they were able to bring substantial sponsorship to the team.

He added: "That is a vast difference between somebody who has to bring money to get his drive – I'm talking about guys that are fully talented and worthy of their seat but they are having to bring sponsorship because we have a commercial need."