As the 2025 season is around the horizon, all F1 drivers’ super licenses are up for renewal. The fees that these drivers pay for renewing their super licenses often make several headlines with Max Verstappen stealing most of them last year, owing to his exorbitant super license fee, which exceeded a million dollars.
That was the case due to the Dutchman winning 19 of the 22 races and amassing 575 points in 2023. However, for the 2025 season, Verstappen is actually saving money for his super license renewal. Having scored 437 points with only nine race wins, the Red Bull driver’s total fees toward the FIA will see a drop of around $201,000.
Last season saw many drivers challenge Verstappen for race wins and take away points from him, as Red Bull struggled with their car’s handling in the latter half of the season. While the Dutchman managed to defend his world championship, it was a significant drop in points and win tally from a year ago.
F1 photojournalist Kym Illman has elaborated on how the FIA has upped the renewal fees to some extent this year, with the base fee seeing a 10% increase from €10,400 to €11,453 ($11,778). Meanwhile, the fee per point scored has gone up from €2,100 to €2,313 ($2,378).
Now, per these numbers, Verstappen paid around $1.252 million for renewing his super license last year, which will come down to $1.051 million for the 2025 season. This won’t make a big difference to the four-time world champion, as it will be his team that will pay the FIA.
Cost of Max Verstappen’s Super License in Formula 1#F1 #skf1 pic.twitter.com/bBFnM9qGOS
— Aleksandar Prodanović ️ (@a_prodanovic99) December 28, 2024
However, other teams like McLaren will have an increase in both of their drivers’ super license fees, owing to the jump in their performances in 2024.
An uptick in Norris, Piastri, and Leclerc’s super license fees
Relative to 2023, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc had much more competitive seasons with four and three Grand Prix wins respectively. Their points tally also saw an uptick which has, in turn, made their super license renewals more costly in 2025.
Norris’ renewal fee will come at around $900k, while Leclerc’s amount will be around $858k. Now, this is an increase in costs for their respective teams. However, McLaren and Ferrari won’t mind bearing this additional fee if their drivers continue to perform at the top and rack up wins besides challenging for the championship.
McLaren will also hope that Oscar Piastri continues to generate such a high super license fee every year, given the kind of improvement they saw in his performance last year. After scoring only 97 points in his debut year, the Aussie got to nearly 300 points in the 2024 season, finishing fourth with two wins to his name.
As a result, Piastri’s super license fee for 2025 will cost around $708k, seeing an increase of $487k from the previous year.
