The 2015 season has been a monotonous one till now with Mercedes dominating most of the races. Lewis Hamilton has been the clear favourite while Nico Rosberg has been fighting to make his mark at Mercedes. Sebastian Vettel too has been doing week after he joined Ferrari this year. McLaren has not been able to do well due to poor power unit from Honda but have the best driver line up this season with two world champions in the team: Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.
F1 2015 driver salary overview
It is time, I feel we took a look at their current contracts and the kind of payment contracts the drivers have with the teams.
Sebastian Vettel has signed a 3 year contract with Ferrari this season which will see him earn approximately $50 million in the first year and around $30 million a year in bonuses. He is currently the highest paid driver in the 2015 line up.
Fernando Alonso too signed a big fat deal with McLaren-Honda for two years with the option to extend into the third year. The contract will see him earn around $40 million a year for the next two years.
Lewis Hamilton is still in the final stages of signing a three year deal with Mercedes with a basic salary of around $31 million a year with over $10 million worth bonuses in case he wins the driver’s championship title.
Nico Rosberg on the other hand has already signed a new two year deal for the current and next year with Mercedes. The deal will see him earn around $15 million basic apart from bonuses on race wins and championship points.
World Champion Jenson Button on the other hand had to deal with a decrease in pay to sign a two year deal with the McLaren team. The new contract will see him earn around $8 million annually as compared to $12 million in his previous contract.
Daniel Riccardo after outperforming Vettel in 2014 season has been in the lookout for a better pay from Red Bull Racing. His current salary is approximately $0.7 million. He is said he get a massive hike in the next contract more than doubling his current salary to $1.5 million plus bonuses for winning races and championship points.
Kimi Raikkonen is currently on his last year on the current contract and is earning about $26 million a year including all bonuses at Ferrari. Ferrari are still tight lipped about his renewing his contract.
Force India pays around $4 million each to its two drivers currently. Nico Hulkenberg has just signed an extension till the end of 2015 season while Sergio Perez has signed a multi-year deal with Force India.
The two rookies at Toro Rosso, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz earn, compared to the others, a mediocre $512,000 and $370,000 a year. The salary for a rookie, driving time in Formula One is actually not that bad. They have only been signed for the current season to race for STR and the next season will be open for renewal based on the performance in this season. The STR team has done well in fact to promote young talent from lower division. Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Riccardo are the result of such programs.
Tags: 2015 Formula One, Daniel Riccardo, F1, Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Force India, Formula One, Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Mercedes, Nico Rosberg, Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel
