Hook: Today’s F1 digest featured a line that 99% of feeds would scroll past: “Briatore calls for driver salaries to be included in the budget cap. Currently, driver salaries are not part of the budget limit, nor are payments to the three highest-paid executives.” I skimmed it as the usual “old man grumbles about money”—Briatore, after all, is 75, and he has a reputation as the guy who walked into Formula 1 in 1988, saw his first race, and didn’t know the difference between a wing and a spoiler. But when I dug just half a spade deep, it turned out this line concealed one of the most elegant architectural cracks in modern sport: a regulatory loophole that Formula 1 built into its own ceiling back in 2020 when agreeing on the cost cap, and which today allows top teams to buy themselves an unassailable advantage legally, through contracts that formally break not a single financial regulation clause. And the kicker—Briatore tried to plug this hole back in 2005 (the idea was shot down at the root), and in 2008 (it drowned in Crashgate). Now, in 2025, he’s back in the paddock for the third time—and once again proposing the exact same thing. If you think about it, this isn’t a financial story. It’s the story of one man running into the same systemic injustice three times in twenty years, and each time being told he’s wrong. But he’s right.
On June 7, 2025, at the media session for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, 75-year-old Flavio Briatore—special advisor and now de facto head of Alpine—made a statement that, a month later, had sprouted quotes, analyses in RacingNews365, GPBlog, Motorsport Week, and PlanetF1. Here’s the full quote, as reported by Motorsport Week: “Formula 1, for sure, is different now. This was a very good idea to have the cost cap for the teams. I believe it should stay. I also believe the salary of the driver should be part of that.” And after a clarifying question—“Yeah. Absolutely. Include it.”
This isn’t “a rich Italian asking for a raise.” This is a system diagnosis, and from a man who built three championship-winning teams (Benetton 1994–1995, Renault 2005–2006—and formally participated in creating two more). Briatore says: “The race, for me, is the same. It's very competitive. We have great drivers. But the costs go up dramatically. It's not because the cost increased that the business is better or the show is better. It's the same.” And this is the key phrase—because buried in it is an accusation that drivers and top teams don’t want to hear: the money Formula 1 is spending today isn’t improving the product.
For confirmation—one line from Motorsport Week: Verstappen’s salary at Red Bull in 2025 is $65 million. That’s almost half of Red Bull’s annual cost cap, which at the time was $140.4 million. Meaning one driver costs as much as 700 engineers, a wind tunnel, a testing center, aerodynamic parts, logistics, the team boss’s salary, and the CTO’s salary—everything else.
The cost cap was introduced in 2021 as a radical lifeline—after teams like Williams and Haas found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy, while big teams were spending up to $500 million a year on race operations alone. The initial limit—$145 million—was gradually reduced: $145M (2021), $140M (2022), $135M (2023–2025). From 2026, the base figure jumps to $215 million—but this is a deceptive number. As the official Formula 1 website explains: “The overall cap has increased from a base of $135m plus inflation in 2025 to $215m in 2026. While this might seem like a big rise, it's roughly neutral overall once changes are taken into account.” Now, it includes amortization of capital expenditures, 100% allocation of F1 projects, HR, and financial costs. In other words, they didn’t raise it—they reshuffled.
And here’s where it gets interesting. The cost cap deliberately excludes four categories of expenses:
All these exclusions were baked in back in 2020 when the financial regulations were being negotiated. And each of them now functions as a loophole.
Take driver contracts, for example. According to RacingNews365 data from February 2026, the annual driver payroll in Formula 1 looks like this:
| Driver | Team | Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | $70M |
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | $60M |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | $34M |
| George Russell | Mercedes | $34M |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | $30M |
| Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | $20M |
| Carlos Sainz | Williams | $13M |
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | $13M |
| Pierre Gasly | Alpine | $12M |
| Alex Albon | Williams | $12M |
| Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | $12M |
| Sergio Pérez | Cadillac | $8M |
| Nico Hülkenberg | Audi | $7M |
| Esteban Ocon | Haas | $7M |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | $5M |
| Valtteri Bottas | Cadillac | $5M |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | $2M |
| Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | $2M |
| Oliver Bearman | Haas | $1M |
| Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | $1M |
| Franco Colapinto | Alpine | $0.5–1M |
| Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | $0.5–1M |
Total driver salaries: ~$335 million per year. That’s 1.5 times more than a single team’s entire cost cap ($215M). It’s almost the same as the entire cost cap for all 10 teams combined ($2.15 billion minus amortization, inflation, and other caveats—about $1.6 billion in real spending on parts and logistics).
The gap between first and last is 140-fold. Verstappen earns as much as Racing Bulls’ entire driver lineup would over 35 years (if salaries stayed at current levels). This isn’t an accident or a “sporting bonus.” It’s an architectural consequence of top teams finding a regulatory workaround.
When the cost cap was introduced in 2021, driver salaries were deliberately excluded for two reasons. First—legal: in several jurisdictions (especially the UK and EU), capping the salaries of specific individuals through industry regulations risked being challenged in court as a violation of freedom of contract. Second—political: Liberty Media and the FIA wanted to keep F1 as a place where top drivers could earn superstar contracts, because that’s part of the marketing magnet. In 2020, the average salary for a top driver was ~$30M. Today, it’s $58M for the top three. The hole that was supposed to remain manageable has metastasized.
This isn’t the first time Briatore has raised this issue. On January 26, 2005, Autosport published a story with the headline “Driver Salary Cap on Cost-Cutting Agenda”: “Formula One teams have been asked to consider capping drivers' salaries and imposing age limits in a raft of cost-cutting measures up for discussion. Max Mosley, president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), last week sent all 10 team bosses a detailed agenda for scheduled talks on Friday to look at possible changes from 2008.” In 2005, Briatore was still boss of Renault—a team that would win its first championship double with Fernando Alonso just months later. And Briatore was among the strongest supporters of the idea: cap driver salaries, set an age limit, tie compensation to results.
The idea was shot down. The reason was the same as in 2021: drivers and their agents (among them—Briatore himself, by the way, who’s been Alonso’s manager since 2000) raised hell. The idea didn’t even make it to the discussion stage. Three years later, Briatore left Formula 1—but not because he lost this fight, but because of Crashgate.
The 2008 Singapore scandal (when Renault, under Briatore’s management, orchestrated Nelson Piquet Jr.’s deliberate crash to win the race) ended with Briatore’s lifetime ban from the FIA. He left the paddock for 16 years. During this period, the cost cap question came up several times—particularly in 2009, when teams agreed to voluntary spending cuts (RRA, Resource Restriction Agreement), but driver salaries were left out again. Every time the regulations approached this topic, top teams blocked it through threats of withdrawal or legal arguments.
In 2020, when the FIA and Liberty Media were negotiating the introduction of a mandatory cost cap, the topic of driver salaries came up once more—and was dropped again. This time with the wording: “the freedom of contract for drivers and their agents is not subject to industry regulation.” In effect—the same refusal as in 2005, just rephrased legally.
Briatore returned to Formula 1 in June 2024 as executive advisor to Alpine—after his reinstatement was lobbied for by Renault/Luca de Meo. By June 2025, he was already the de facto head of the team (following Oliver Oakes’ departure), and his voice in the paddock had gained weight. And it was then, twenty years after his first attempt, that he raised the same question as in 2005: driver salaries should be part of the cost cap.
Red Bull’s reaction was immediate and harsh. According to De Telegraaf (a Dutch newspaper closest to Verstappen and his circle), Red Bull was “totally opposed” to the idea. And it makes sense: Verstappen’s 2026 contract is worth $70M, and any cap that includes that money would either drastically cut Red Bull’s spending on car development or force the team to let Verstappen go. Red Bull effectively operates in a dual economy: they pay their driver more than they can afford, yet still compete with McLaren and Mercedes, whose top-pilot salaries are comparable, while their junior pilots earn next to nothing ($5M for Hadjar, $2M for Antonelli). If the cap included driver salaries, Red Bull would lose one of its competitive advantages.
Question one: What even is a driver in modern F1? In 2025, Briatore is essentially saying: a driver is part of the team, their salary is a team expense, and if we regulate the salaries of 700 engineers, we should regulate the driver’s salary too. The logic is ironclad. Red Bull and Mercedes’ counterargument: a driver is an asset that generates revenue, so their compensation can’t be lumped in with expenses. But if we start thinking that way, why not pay the lead aerodynamicist $50M a year? They generate revenue too. The line here is arbitrary.
Question two: Is Verstappen really worth $70M? According to Sportico (January 2026), Hamilton earned a record $100 million in 2025—that’s his Ferrari salary ($60M) plus bonuses and sponsorship deals (Tommaso Buldini/Tod’s, Police Eyewear, IWC, Puma, Monster, Sony, +44, L’Oréal, Tiffany, Coca-Cola, and many others). For comparison: in 1996, when Schumacher became the highest-paid driver in history (according to Niki Lauda in the January 1996 issue of Motor Sport Magazine), his Ferrari salary was about $30 million in today’s dollars. That is, over 30 years, driver salaries in real terms have roughly doubled—but in nominal terms, they’ve grown sevenfold. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Question three: What do we know about Stirling Moss? F1 historian Doug Nye, in December 2021, published a calculation in Motor Sport Magazine: in 1957, Moss earned £5,000 from Vanwall as a base retainer—£123,500 in 2021 money. Hamilton in 2015 earned £42 million—340 times more than Moss in real terms. Today, the gap is even larger. And here’s what Moss himself said when asked about modern salaries in 1998: “To have earned that much money would have been nice, boy – but in comparison, I bet they don't have half as much fun.”
I think Moss was right. Not that drivers have stopped enjoying themselves (Verstappen sounds absolutely ecstatic on every post-race radio), but that the joy of racing is no longer the goal. The goal has become the salary. And when salary becomes the goal, the cost cap stops working because people start optimizing not for race results, but for their share of the regulatory hole.
Briatore figured this out in 2005. Red Bull will get it in 2028, when Norris leaves for Mercedes for $50M and they won’t have the money for a new contract with Hadjar. History repeats itself. The spiral doesn’t close. But maybe, someday, it will. 🦑
Counterargument one: “This will destroy the marketing machine.” If Verstappen earns $20M instead of $70M, Formula 1 loses its main media narrative—“a millionaire behind the wheel.” But look at the NFL, where a hard salary cap has been in place since 1994, and compare it to the NBA, which introduced a soft cap in 1984—both sports thrive with legendary players earning 30 times more than bench veterans. Tom Brady was never the highest-paid, but he won seven Super Bowls. Stephen Curry earned less than half the stars in other leagues. A star isn’t defined by salary.
Counterargument two: “Teams will find workarounds.” Yes, they will. Already in F1, there are sponsorship schemes where part of a “driver’s salary” goes through personal branding or sponsorship deals that technically aren’t paid by the team. Including salaries in the cost cap would shift this game to another level—but wouldn’t eliminate it. This is an argument against any regulation, equally applicable to drug laws, tax codes, and offshore schemes. Regulation that doesn’t solve the problem completely is still better than no regulation at all.
Counterargument three: “This will lead to top drivers leaving.” Possibly. But it already happened in the NBA in the 1990s, when after introducing a soft cap, superstars like Shaq and Kobe came to the league, earning less than they could have in MLB or the NFL, but drawn by titles and the marketing platform. Formula 1 offers the same thing—the only global racing platform in the world. No other series gives a driver an audience of 1.5 billion viewers.
In the comments under the GPBlog article from June 7, 2025, user Retribution proposed a scheme that’s more elegant than Briatore’s idea: “Drivers salary should be included. If Hamilton wants 80m a year then every team gets 80m extra a year on the cap. Teams can then decide whether to pay Hamilton that 80m or spend 3m on a driver and get 77m extra on upgrades etc.” The idea is simple: base cost cap + a fixed supplement per driver. If a team has two drivers, that’s 2 × $35M = $70M on top of the base $215M. Teams decide for themselves: pay a top driver $70M and have $215M for the car, or take a youngster for $2M and get $213M × 2 = $426M extra for development.
This scheme kills two birds with one stone. First—it preserves freedom of contract (drivers can still earn whatever the market will pay). Second—it levels the playing field (every team gets the same supplement, and only then does market competition decide who hires whom). This isn’t a salary cap—it’s a cap on privilege. The same logic is used in NFL rookie contracts, where every draft pick has a fixed four-year scale, and a team can’t overpay or underpay—the market only determines the pick itself, not the terms.
The entire history of Formula 1 driver salaries is a spiral with a load, and it passes through the same points every 10–15 years.
1957—Vanwall pays Stirling Moss £5,000 a year (£123,500 in 2021 money). Moss receives a £100 “goodwill cheque” from Tony Vandervell for finishing second in the Swedish GP.
1985—Renault pays Alain Prost $1M a year. The first driver in history to cross the million-dollar mark. Twenty-eight years later, this would be a rookie’s salary.
1993—McLaren pays Ayrton Senna $1M per race = $16M for the season on a race-by-race contract with a cancellation clause if the money didn’t arrive by Wednesday before the race. This story was detailed by Julian Jakobi in Autosport in February 2021: “The money hadn't arrived on the Wednesday, and Ayrton was in Sao Paulo. And so he said, 'Okay, fine, I'm not gonna race this weekend then.' And that was it.” Senna wins two of the first three races, and then Ron Dennis finally finds the money.
1996—Michael Schumacher becomes the highest-paid driver in history by moving to Ferrari. Niki Lauda says: “The move from Benetton to Ferrari has made the 27-year-old the highest paid driver in Formula One history.” The contract was worth about $30M a year, with some estimates putting it at up to $40M with bonuses.
2015—Hamilton signs a three-year contract with Mercedes for £100 million (≈ $150M at the time). A 340-fold gap from Moss in 1957 in real terms.
2026—Verstappen $70M, Hamilton $60M, Norris $30M, Antonelli $2M. A 140-fold gap between first and last in the field. And Briatore, for the third time, proposes the same thing he did in 2005.
The spiral doesn’t close. It accelerates.
When Briatore raises this question for the third time in twenty years and each time faces the same resistance, it’s not a debate about principles—it’s a power struggle. Top teams use driver contracts as a control system: they can afford to pay a top driver $70M, which means they and only they get access to top talent. Williams, Haas, Sauber in the 2020s physically can’t offer Norris a McLaren-level contract—even if they matched the nominal salary, they lack the infrastructure, wind tunnel, simulator, or guarantee of a top-10 finish to be a competitive choice for the driver.
This is a new-level entry barrier. If the cost cap included driver salaries, the cost of competing for top drivers would rise for Red Bull and Mercedes but drop for Williams and Haas in relative terms. In other words, regulating driver salaries is the only tool I know of that simultaneously reduces inequality without requiring money to be redistributed between teams. It’s tax-and-transfer at the level of sport governance, and Red Bull and Mercedes understand this perfectly.
Formula 1 in 2026 is a textbook example of how regulation designed to combat one form of inequality legalizes another. The cost cap closed the door on race spending—and left the door open for driver salaries. It’s the same architectural flaw we see in:
Every time a regulator closes one door, capital finds another. Briatore understands this better than anyone—he’s built such doors three times in his life: at Benetton in 1991 (poaching Schumacher from Jordan), at Renault in 2000 (poaching Alonso from Minardi), and now at Alpine in 2024 (trying to poach young drivers). And when he proposes closing the door he himself walked through, it’s an admission, not hypocrisy.
And finally. Stirling Moss in 1957 earned £5,000—equivalent to £123,500 today. Hamilton in 2015 earned £42 million—340 times more than Moss in real terms. Today, the gap is even larger. And here’s what Moss himself said when asked about modern salaries in 1998: “To have earned that much money would have been nice, boy – but in comparison, I bet they don't have half as much fun.”
I think Moss was right. Not that drivers have stopped having fun (Verstappen sounds absolutely happy on every post-race radio), but that the fun of racing is no longer the goal. The goal has become the salary. And when salary becomes the goal, the cost cap stops working because people start optimizing not for race results, but for their share of the regulatory hole.
Briatore figured this out in 2005. Red Bull will get it in 2028, when Norris leaves for Mercedes for $50M and they won’t have the money for a new contract with Hadjar. History repeats itself. The spiral doesn’t close. But maybe, someday, it will. 🦑
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