Former Red Bull mechanic Calum Nicholas estimated in September 2025 that an F1 technician earns about £60,000 a year on average. He also said the average working week is about 70 hours and that pit-stop duty does not come with extra pay. These are Nicholas’s approximate statements—not a published team salary scale or audited industry survey.
What does the £60,000 estimate cover?
Nicholas wrote that the average salary for an F1 technician was “closer to £60k.” That is a practitioner’s estimate of technician pay, not a confirmed salary for every person who handles a pit stop, nor a Red Bull pay disclosure. Teams do not freely publish their wage structures, and the available reporting does not establish a formal average, pay range by job grade, or team-by-team comparison. Formule1.nl reported Nicholas’s estimate on September 8, 2025.
The £60,000 figure should not be confused with an anonymous social-media claim that pit crew members earned £350,000 for a few seconds of work. Nicholas disputed that characterization after a slow McLaren stop at Monza; his estimate was about technicians’ overall salary, not a payment for the stop itself.
Is there extra pay for pit-stop work?
Nicholas said that “nobody gets paid more for being on the pit crew.” The stop is a visible assignment within broader team work, rather than a separate job that is paid by the few seconds a car spends in its box.
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RACER’s Chris Medland described pit-stop duties as part of the work of mechanics and logistics staff, including garage technicians. An official Formula 1 feature on Haas crew members also covers their work across the rest of a race weekend, not just the stop. RACER’s December 2024 Q&A and Formula 1’s August 2025 feature provide that context.
How many hours do F1 technicians work?
Nicholas put the average working week at about 70 hours. The figure is his approximate statement, not a published time-study result. It helps explain why judging compensation by the brief, televised pit stop gives an incomplete picture: the crew’s employment covers work beyond that moment.
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How should other salary figures be read?
RACER’s Chris Medland offered a separate rough figure of “$60k a year and up” in December 2024, while cautioning that teams do not freely reveal their wage structures. It is a different, older, dollar-denominated estimate; it should not be converted or blended with Nicholas’s later £60,000 estimate as if both came from the same sample or measured the same thing.
Nicholas also recalled earning £42,000 as his first salary while travelling in F1 at age 22. That is a personal historical starting salary, reported in September 2025, not a current entry-level rate. PlanetF1’s report includes that anecdote.
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What is known—and what is not
The most useful available answer is Nicholas’s approximate £60,000 annual estimate for an F1 technician, alongside his statements about hours and pit-stop assignment. The reporting does not establish current entry-level pay, a verified salary range, a formal industry average, or what any particular team pays. For career context, Nicholas discussed writing Life in the Pitlane to answer questions about motorsport careers in a March 2025 interview with Motorsport.com.
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