Ahead of the 2024 season, three-time world champion, Max Verstappen will have to pay the FIA a whopping $1,300,000 to renew his superlicense and have a shot at defending his title. While the Dutchman may not be happy about the huge sum he has to cough up, it turns out that the money he gives will be used by the governing body of the sport for his own good and welfare.
Revered F1 photojournalist, Kym Illman took to his YouTube channel earlier this week to share his insights into the F1 superlicense fees. While the entire concept has been criticized by the drivers and fans alike for being too exorbitant, in reality, the money paid by the likes of Verstappen isn’t gobbled up by wealthy FIA executives.
Illman revealed,
“How do they [the FIA] use that money? Well, a lot of it is put towards safety improvements in the sport.”
According to the Australian, in 2024, the FIA will receive roughly a sum of $5,900,000 from their collective driver fees payout.
When put into this context, it doesn’t like a big price to pay for Verstappen. Moreover, with each passing year, the safety standards in Formula 1 have massively improved with major accidents, like Guanyu Zhou’s 2022 British GP shunt, leaving drivers unscathed. Additionally, its not only the drivers who have to pay an ‘entry fee‘ to the governing organization.
F1 teams to pay record-breaking entry fee to FIA in 2024
The FIA also exacts a hefty sum from the teams in terms of their entry fees. In 2024, each team will have to pay $657,837 as a base fee with an additional $7893 for each point scored. This means Red Bull will pay more than $7 million for their 860 points scored whilst in total a sum of around $24 million will be paid by all the 10 teams to the FIA.
That being said, this price tag to compete at the very pinnacle of motorsport is not the end of the world for any team. While they may have to incur this additional expense, the exposure they get from just competing in F1 garners them vastly more in terms of sponsorship and marketing deals. What’s more, the billion dollar prize pool also means that at the end of the year, the teams get paid a huge sum for just participating in that year.
There is yet another catch to the entire drivers’ and teams’ license/entry fees, though. As Illman revealed, Verstappen himself won’t be paying the superlicense fees. Similarly, other driver too, won’t have to pay the money out of their own pockets. In fact, the teams, whilst paying their own fees to the FIA, have to also pay the superlicense costs of each of their drivers.
Despite this, when prompted in the past, Max Verstappen has vented some really strong feelings about the fees structure imposed by the FIA.
