Ex-Red Bull crew member reveals how much F1 pit crew get paid

As the right-hand man to Max Verstappen’s four World Championship titles, former Red Bull mechanic Calum Nicholas has revealed how much the F1 pit crew salary is.

The F1 pit crews have been placed under the microscope in the 2025 season, thanks to McLaren.

With a mishap in the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the McLaren pit crew had race leader Lando Norris sitting stationary for an age whilst Oscar Piastri flew by, resulting in a controversial team ruling that saw the championship leaders swap places.

Amid some online backlash, Nicholas has leapt to their defence, revealing the Red Bull pit crew’s salary on the way.

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F1 pit crew salary revealed by former Red Bull mechanic

The ‘Temple of Speed‘ at Monza lived up to its hype once again in the Formula 1 circuit.

Max Verstappen made history by completing a Formula 1 race in the quickest time ever, flying around the Italian circuit in 1:13:24.325s.

But the headlines were all dominated by the two McLaren cars as they were told to switch positions on the final two laps, giving Lando Norris the lead again and a vital three-point gain in the leaderboards.

With the pit stop that halted Norris’ race, the McLaren crew were on the receiving end of some angry keyboard warriors, one of whom claimed that the paddock staff work ‘three-second shifts’ for ‘£350,000-a-year.’

But the former Red Bull mechanic hit back, saying this is completely untrue.

Taking to X, Nicholas called out the ’embarrassing’ tweet.

“This is why so few people in the paddock interact on here, by the way. Bs opinions like this. It’s embarrassing,” he said.

“[The] Average salary for an F1 Tech is closer to £60k [$78,000] by the way. The average working week is about 70 hours. Most fly economy, and nobody gets paid more for being on the pit crew,” he added.

It’s clear that the F1 pit crew salary is not as high as the haters believe, and human error is always going to come into play when the stakes are so high.

Could Red Bull launch a last-ditch effort to get Verstappen’s fifth title?

The pandemonium in McLaren’s pit crew might have huge ramifications for the rest of the season. That’s because Red Bull appears to have a second wind after a turbulent start.

Verstappen finished the race in Monza over 20 seconds clear of both Norris and Piastri, and appeared to be in fine form.

With Piastri giving up a six-point difference in the standings, the door is slightly ajar for Verstappen to sneak in and launch a full attack in the latter half of the season.

With a 96-point deficit, eight races might not be enough for Max, though, and he’ll need to win every race and hope Piastri and Norris fall down the pecking order on multiple occasions.

What is for certain is that McLaren’s inter-team politics has set an interesting precedent, one which Max said he wouldn’t have given in to.

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