RYO HIRAKAWA REPORTEDLY PAID $3.5M FOR A FREE PRACTICE SESSION WITH MCLAREN
The court case of Mclaren against Palou has exposed an interesting case: drivers pay to take part in the free practice 1 session during Formula 1 weekends.
The first real example is Ryo Hirakawa, who paid 3.5 milion dollars to take part in the first free practice session during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, although it is also said that it included two program of testing of previous cars (TPC Program) in order to get the feeling of the car.
It does not happen exclusively with Mclaren: every Formula 1 can charge drivers (mostly non-regular drivers) millions of dollars to drive their cars during F1 weekends or private tests.
However, drivers themselves do not entirely pay the fee, as most of them are usually backed by a team, in Hirakawa’s case, Toyota Gazoo Racing, as he drives the Hypercar of the Japanese team in the World Endurance Championship. The team usually covers most of the fee.
The price broken down as per Mclaren’s financial data for the Japanese’s session was: $1 milion for each TPC program, with the rest ($1.5 milion) going for the Free Practice 1 session in Abu Dhabi.
Nevertheless, one of this TPCs run (worth $1 milion), were initially part of Palou’s preparation for an FP1 session before he resigned the contract with Mclaren. Therefore, Ryo Hirakawa had to pay for it once the Spaniard pulled out of the deal.
During the court Mclaren then recognised that they would have repaid the Toyota driver back one milion dollars, but not the remainder of the program to take part in a practice session, because it was originally Palou’s TPC.
It is not a huge news that Formula racing is ridiculously expensive, since every driver has to pay for their seat to race a full season, even more in Formula 1, either with the help of their sponsors or family’s businesses. Today, a seat for a first full season in the pinnacle of motorsport is said to reach 8 figures, if not more.
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