Lewis Hamilton will have to pay €228,000 ($335,700) for his licence to race in Formula One this year after forking out just €1,725 in his 2007 rookie season.

Only Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn who beat the McLaren driver to the title by a single point in the final race, will pay more.

FIA president Max Mosley confirmed this week that the governing body had decided to make Formula One superlicences far more expensive than in the past.

Mosley said the mandatory superlicence, which cost a basic fee of €1,725 last year with €456 added on for each point scored in the previous year's championship, would go up to €10,000 with €2,000 extra per point scored. Hamilton won four races and scored 109 points last season to Raikkonen's 110.

The cost of his superlicence is likely to be less than a week's wages however for the 23-year-old Briton who this month agreed a revised five-year contract keeping him at McLaren to the end of 2012.

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