The entry fees for all F1 teams in the Formula One World Championship increased for 2025. The costs varied for each team, depending on its championship points and finishing position in the Constructor’s Championship in the 2024 F1 season. For 2025, the entry fees varied by as much as $5.4 million.
Why do F1 team entry fees vary?
F1 teams pay different amounts based on their previous season’s performance, although it doesn’t work out how you might think. The highest-scoring team from the previous year doesn’t get a pass or a discount on the next season’s entry fee. Last year’s winners pay the most.
The entry fee is one of several ways the FIA F1 rules and regulations penalize winning performance in the spirit of fairness and competitiveness. For example, the order of the pit lane garages in Grands Prix is determined by the placement of the previous year’s pit lane for an entire season. For 2025, McLaren’s pit lane garage will be the furthest from the pit lane exit onto the race track because McLaren won the 2024 Constructor’s Championship.
Likewise, while the teams develop their cars for the next racing season, the FIA F1 rules limit the time each team can test its new car in wind tunnels. Wind tunnel testing is crucial for F1 race cars because they travel at extremely high speeds, where wind resistance and air flow are significant factors. Within FIA regulations, teams can change their cars’ bodies to improve their aerodynamics.
Once again, winning teams from the previous season are penalized; they are allowed more wind tunnel testing time in inverse order of their standing in the previous Championship. So this year, for example, the last-place-finisher Kick Sauber F1 team will have the greatest allocation of time, and McLaren will have the least.
Why F1 team entry fees are so high
F1 racing has been a big-money sport since 1950 when the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) officially recognized the Formula One World Championship as a World Championship motorsport.
The FIA and the F1 governing body make money primarily from viewers in ticket sales for people who attend the races and by contracts with television and streaming media and broadcast deals. Sponsorships are another primary revenue source for F1 and the individual teams.
You might wonder why an F1 team has to pay an entry fee, especially when the cost can be millions of dollars. F1 teams already have millions of dollars in season budgets to develop, build, and maintain race cars. The teams also have to pay the salaries of hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of employees. Transportation costs are also necessary to transport people,
For 2025, there will be 24 Grand Prix races, as in 2024. As part of the FIA and F1 sustainability programs, the F1 organizing body is attempting to group consecutive races on the calendar by location to save on costs and net carbon costs.
2025 F1 entry fees
The FIA F1 Sporting Regulations spell out the amount teams pay to participate in a Formula One World Championship, the admittedly awkward way the FIA refers to an F1 season. These Regulations are one of three parts of a bulky set of documents revised yearly. The other parts are the Technical Regulations, which cover the physical details of the cars and their parts, and the Financial Regulations, which specify the cost cap imposed by the FIA on each team and the financial reporting requirements for the team.
Appendix 4 of 2025 FIA F1 Sporting Regulations specifies that “The winner of the 2024 World Championship for Constructors will be required to pay a basic fee of US $680,203 plus US $8,161 for each point gained in the 0224 World Championship for Constructors.
Every other Competitor will be required to pay a basic fee of US $680,203 plus $6,799 for each point gained in the 0224 World Championship for Constructors.”
The table below lists the 2024 teams in order of finishing the season. The table also includes the number of points earned in 2024 by each team and the resulting fees they had to pay for 2025.
| Team | Base entry fee
|
2024 points | Points x point multiplier
|
Total fee for 2025 | |
| 1 | McLaren | $680,203 | 666 | $5,435,226 | $6,115,429 |
| 2 | Ferrari | $680,203 | 652 | $4,432,948 | $5,113,151 |
| 3 | Red Bull | $680,203 | 589 | $4,004,611 | $4,684,814 |
| 4 | Mercedes | $680,203 | 468 | $3,181,932 | $3,862,135 |
| 5 | Aston Martin | $680,203 | 94 | $639,106 | $1,319,309 |
| 6 | Alpine | $680,203 | 65 | $441,935 | $1,122,138 |
| 7 | Haas | $680,203 | 58 | $394,342 | $1,074,545 |
| 8 | RB Honda | $680,203 | 46 | $312,754 | $992,957 |
| 9 | Williams | $680,203 | 17 | $115,583 | $795,786 |
| 10 | Kick Sauber | $680,203 | 4 | $27,196 | $707,399 |
