Max Verstappen gets lucky break as Red Bull foot enormous FIA bill

Thomas Maher
Christian Horner and Max Verstappen laughing.

Red Bull's Christian Horner has a laugh and a joke with World Champion Max Verstappen.

Max Verstappen’s bill from the FIA to be granted his Super Licence for 2024 won’t have to come out of his own pockets.

Verstappen is set to have to hand over an astronomical sum to the FIA to be granted his licence, which every driver is required to pay to the governing body in order to take part in the F1 World Championship.

The FIA charges team entry fees as well as driver super licence fees and, while the exact sum Verstappen will have to pay isn’t confirmed, the figure will be somewhere just above €1.2 million.

How do F1 driver Super Licence fees work?

For 2023, each F1 driver was required to pay a €10,400 flat fee for their super licence, and then an additional €2,100 for every point the driver scored over the course of the 2022 season.

With entry fees for the F1 teams climbing by 6.5% in line with inflation on the United States Consumer Price Index for 2024, it’s reasonable to assume Super Licence fees for 2024 will follow suit as an administrative cost to the governing body.

Verstappen’s bill for 2023 was €963,800 and, even if the rates don’t increase for next year, his bill would be €1,217,900 due to him scoring 26.3% more championship points than last year. This means that, assuming an inflationary increase, Verstappen will have to hand out an additional €79,163.5 for a total cost of €1,297,063.5.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom in the Verstappen household heading into the Christmas break, as the reigning World Champion has revealed its his team who will foot the bill – on top of having to pay their own entry fees.

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“The team pays that, fortunately,” Verstappen told Dutch broadcaster Viaplay.

“I do think there should be some normal ratio in that.

“But, you know, things like that get written down, and I don’t think anybody expected that there would end up being that many points scored.”

The good news for Red Bull is that the extra €1.3 million to pay Verstappen’s bill won’t cause them any hardships in terms of having to curtail spending in other areas.

This is because driver salaries and fees do not fall under the budget cap that restricts F1 team expenditure on performance-related areas.

“I mean, it’s a luxury problem to have because we’ve had to score the points to generate the invoice,” Horner said.

“Thankfully, it’s outside of the budget cap. But, yeah, it’s a big cheque to be writing to the FIA.”

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