FIA explain how they spend money from F1 driver fines

The FIA have clarified how they spend the money accrued from fining the F1 drivers.

A total of 270,000 Euros was taken out of the pockets of the drivers by the sport’s governing body last season for a series of punishments.

Drivers were fined for transgressions including pitlane speeding, crossing a live track, and most controversially using foul language.

Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen were notably fined for swearing in official press conferences.

But the FIA have moved to explain what they do with the money.

FIA explain how money from fines is spent

"The FIA is not a profit-making organisation," Nikolas Tombazis, the organisation’s head of single-seater racing, told Autosport.

"We don't have shareholders who are looking at some numbers in the stock exchange and hoping for share price to go up or get more dividends or anything like that.

“So all the money is spent on what is considered to be beneficial aspects, whether it is for safety, for grassroots in motorsport, or sometimes other projects which are to do with road safety.

"I think this question is sometimes slightly influenced by the emotions of the moment, of whatever fine is being discussed and so on.

“I realise that anyone who is paying a fine is always slightly annoyed about it and may feel somewhat aggrieved, but for sure there are so many different levels of projects that I think you can never come to the conclusion that this money is somehow spent for Christmas parties and so on.

"The amount of money spent in grassroots vastly exceeds the fines accumulated, which I think indicates that anything that goes in there will have a positive impact.

“I think you would struggle to find projects at the FIA that don't have some motorsport grassroots or social impact.

"What I can say with absolute certainty is that fines of drivers in one sport don't subsidise another sport or another category or something like that.

“But if you look at other initiatives, whether it is our campaigns, like the one about online abuse and all the grassroots we've been talking about before, or safety projects, I believe are noble ways of spending such money. And this money does contribute to that."