The world championship title brings fame—and a seven-figure bill: The 2026 super license shows what success in Formula 1 really costs
The value of Lando Norris’s World Championship title win in the 2025 Formula 1 season will become clear before the 2026 season. As world champion, he will have to pay the highest fee for the super license – the “Formula 1 driver’s license” – which is over one million euros.
However, the fee is only this high for Norris: each driver pays an individual amount because the costs are based on the World Championship points scored in the previous season. Starting from a basic fee of €11,842, €2,392 is added for each World Championship point. For Norris, with 423 points, that means €1,023,658. Max Verstappen, who finished second in the championship with 421 points, also has to pay over a million euros for his Formula 1 super license, while Oscar Piastri, who finished third in the championship with 410 points, has to pay just under a million euros.
This is how much Nico Hülkenberg has to pay
For Nico Hülkenberg, who finished eleventh in the World Championship with 51 points in the 2025 season, the calculation for 2026 is as follows: the basic fee of €11,842 plus €121,992 for the points scored. That comes to a total of €133,834.
Special cases: Who only has to pay the basic fee
But what if a driver didn’t score any points in the previous year or didn’t compete in Formula 1 at all? The former applies to Franco Colapinto of Alpine, the latter to the two Formula 1 returnees Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez at Cadillac.
The simple answer is that Colapinto, Bottas, and Perez will only pay the basic fee of around €12,000. This means they will be the cheapest drivers in Formula 1 in 2026.
Max Verstappen is the record holder
Verstappen continues to hold the record for the highest super license fee: after scoring 575 World Championship points in the 2023 season, he had to pay over €1.2 million for his Formula 1 license in 2024.
Drivers must transfer the money to the International Automobile Federation (FIA), as the world governing body awards super licenses on an annual basis. The super license must be reapplied for each season.
