02/11/2012
NEWS STORY
In a late addition to the 2013 sporting regulations, the FIA has raised the entry fees that teams will need to pay to contest the championship.
Appendix 7 reads:
i) The winner of the 2012 World Championship for Constructors will be required to pay a basic fee of $500,000 plus $6000 for each point gained in the 2012 World Championship for Constructors.
ii) Every other competitor will be required to pay a basic fee of $500,000 plus $5000 for each point that competitor gained in the 2012 World Championship for Constructors.
In both cases the basic fee is due at the time of the application and the remainder by 30 November of the year prior to the year to which this application relates.
This season, teams paid $399,800 each with no additional payment for points scored in the previous year.
With three rounds of the championship remaining, Red Bull, with 407 points in the bag, will need to pay $4.4m, while Ferrari will need to find $2.08m.
However, it's the likes of Sauber and Force India who will struggle, currently facing a fee of $1.08m and $965,000 respectively.
"We would be delighted to pay it because we would be scoring a lot of points," Ross Brawn told reporters at today's FIA press conference. "In fact, if you're a mid-range team, and considering the fact that all the extra facilities that we pay for separately at the moment are rolled into that entrance fee, I think for a lot of teams it's going to be very similar.
"It's going to make more substantial difference for those teams who finish in the top three or four of the championship. I was being a bit flippant, but obviously I hope that we can have that problem next year."