The only upsides that temper Red Bull’s “hate” of being beaten in Formula 1

Red Bull may confess to ‘hate’ being beaten in Formula 1 this year, but there are two notable upsides that compensate a little for seeing McLaren and Ferrari finish ahead of it.

The first is a $2.7 million saving that the squad will have on its entry fee compared to what it forked out last year.

But perhaps more importantly, there is also a boost to its wind tunnel running which could be hugely valuable ahead of F1’s major rules revamp for 2026.

Entry fee slashed

Ever since 2013, as part of a revised Concorde Agreement that came into force that year, the FIA has based entry fees for each competitor on the number of points scored in the previous season.

This originally started with a base fee of $500,000 plus $5000 per point scored, apart from the constructors’ champion which had to pay $6000. 

However, with inflation having been taken into account, for the 2025 season the figures are a base fee for everyone of $680,203 plus an extra $8161 per point scored for the constructors’ champion. Every other team must pay $6799 per point scored.

This means that title winner McLaren will pay a total of $6,115,429, with Ferrari set to fork out $5,113,151 and third-placed Red Bull a sum of $4,684,814.

Red Bull’s fee is, however, a significant drop on last year when it was left with a whopping bill to pay off the back of its truly dominant season where it had won 21 out of 22 races. The record breaking 860 points that it scored left its entry fee for 2024 as $7,445,817.

That means off the back of the 2024 campaign, where it finished third rather than first, it has an entry fee saving of $2,761,003 – although that pails into insignificance compared to the estimated $20 million in lost commercial rights income that comes from dropping two places in the standings.

The full 2025 entry fees are below

Aero boost

It is not just a saving on entry fees that Red Bull gets from not being so dominant this season, because there are wind tunnel and CFD benefits too.

Formula 1’s sporting rules include what it known as the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions, which details a sliding scale of wind tunnel time and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capacity that can be used for an “aerodynamic testing period” (ATP) of two months, based on championship position.

The team that finishes first in the championship starts each segment with 70% of the baseline allowance, in 5% increments up to the 115% multiplier for finishing 10th, in an effort to create closer grids.

Red Bull has had the least amount since the last reset on 30 June (after the Austrian GP) but, with things changing on December 31, it will now get a benefit for the start of next year, which is exactly when aerodynamic work on the 2026 car is allowed for the first time.

Red Bull will go from 70% of the baseline allowance, up to 80%, which is just more than a 14% increase.

This effectively gives it 256 wind tunnel runs compared to 224 before, and wind on time hours is now 64 rather than 56.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner admitted at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that he did see some positives from this rule benefit that offsets the pain of not ending the year as constructors’ champion.

“It’s a tough one because we have the biggest regulation change in probably 50 or 60 years in the history of the sport,” he said.

“So with that in mind, we hate finishing third in the championship, but the additional wind tunnel time that comes with that is, if you like, the only upside in a year where there is such a dramatic regulatory change.”