And You Think Your DMV Experience Was Bad

OK, for those of you that don’t know, if you want to go Formula 1 racing (or run in a WRC or race at Le Mans), you have to get a license.

It’s called the FIA Superlicense, and it’s handed out by the FIA, the world governing body of motorsports (an organization that’s a cross between … Jesus, they’re unique unto themselves … I was going to say The Spanish Inquisition, The Corleone Family and The NKVD, but comparatively speaking, those outfits are punk amateurs in comparison to the FIA).

Handed out isn’t the right way to put it, you have to earn it, and the FIA are very, very picky.

And, it turns out, the FIA have decided to up the fees from “expensive” to “sale price of a house in suburban Chicago”.

No, really … the thing used to cost around €1,690 (the FIA is based in Switzerland, so every thing is in Euros), but now, it’s €10,000 base fee, plus €2,000 per championship point.

So, if you’re Kimi Raikkonen (the reigning world champ), that works out to a stratospheric €230,000!!

That’s just to get the license, any success in racing is up to the holder.

well, successful ones have to be penalized
seriously, I can’t see any logic behind this, and I am not alone. few F1 blogs discussed this topic at the time the rumours started to circulate and no one was able to make a sense out of this
the superlicense should make sure that lousy drivers do not make it to F1, not to be a revenue income from penalizing for sucess …