Red Bull Party Crashed as Champions Write $6 Million Check to F1 After Victorious Season

Red Bull rejoiced in all the success they had in the 2022 season, courtesy of their golden boy, Max Verstappen. The Dutchman registered 15 wins individually, while the team as a whole got 17. The dual championship win has, however, come with a hefty bill which has left a bad taste in team principal Christian Horner’s mouth.

Despite suffering three DNFs in the first three races, Red Bull put up one of the most dominant displays. Verstappen sealed the drivers’ championship with 4 races to go in Japan, while the team won the constructors’ in the next race in the US. Red Bull have won the championship for the first time since 2013 and now it’s time to pay for all the victories.

Red Bull’s costly participation fee for 2023 revealed

Each team has to pay a certain amount of money to take part in next year’s F1 championship. That amount involves one fixed cost and one variable cost. According to Formula Passion Italy, that fixed cost is $617,687, while the variable cost depends on the number of points the team scored in the previous season.

The website reports the cost for each point scored is $7,411. Given Red Bull had amassed a total of 759 points, the total amount they’ll have to pay to take part next year will be a whopping $6.24 million.

Christian Horner, talking on the issue during the end-of-season Gala, joked, “I didn’t realize how much we had to pay the FIA ​​for points.” [Translated using Google]

“I received the bill the other day, it was incredible.”

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The participation fee is not the only amount Red Bull have to pay to the FIA. The Austrian team is carrying a hefty fine for the breach of the cost cap for the 2021 season, which will hurt them even more.

Cost cap sanctions increase the amount Red Bull owes to the FIA

As per reports released in October, FIA found Red Bull guilty of spending $2.2 million beyond the permissible limit. While the actual breach was around $400,000, the failure to report tax receipts correctly inflated the breach. Resultantly, the ruling body sanctioned the team with a 10% reduction of wind tunnel time and imposed a $7 million fine.

While many believed the Milton-Keynes-based outfit got away easily, Christian Horner called the fine “an enormous amount of money”.

Reporter Jenna Fryer quoted him saying, “The more draconian punishment is the sporting penalty which is a 10% reduction in the use of our wind tunnel. Some people have said that is an insignificant penalty. Let me tell you now, it is an enormous amount & represents anything between 0.25-0.5 sec of lap time.”

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Only time will tell how much the wind tunnel sanctions affect Red Bull’s development next season. As for the money they owe to the FIA, that is pretty steep for sure as well.