Antonelli: a champion on a rookie’s salary – the Formula 1 contract rankings

Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinched the Formula 1 World Championship on 1 November in Mexico City, finishing third behind Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton with four races remaining. At the age of twenty, he is the youngest champion in history, ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who won his first title in 2010 at the age of 23, and brings the title back to Italy 73 years after Alberto Ascari. Umberto Zapelloni, writing in these pages, described him as a young man who set out from Bologna and ‘a normal family’, supported and sponsored by Toto Wolff since he was twelve years old.

Antonelli built much of his reputation in September, with two consecutive victories at Monza and Madrid. In Brianza, he won after starting in nineteenth place, having overtaken 25 times, becoming the first Italian to win the Italian Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti, sixty years ago. A week later, in Spain, he secured his eighth victory of the season. All this in his second season in Formula 1.

However, while Antonelli finished first on the track, in terms of pay he remains in the lower half of the grid. In the drivers’ salary rankings compiled by Sitiscommesse, his contract with Mercedes – valid until 2027 – is worth a fixed sum of around one and a half million euros a year, on a par with Gabriel Bortoleto of Audi and just above the four drivers who earn less than a million. At the top is Verstappen with 65 million, more than forty times as much. Hamilton follows on 55, whilst Charles Leclerc and George Russell, Antonelli’s team-mate, are on 30.

Formula 1 contracts are not made public, and these figures are estimates, relating solely to the fixed salary, excluding bonuses, personal sponsorship deals and image rights. However, paddock sources have long agreed on the relative standing of the drivers, and the gap between the top and bottom of the list exceeds 60 million.

Even Lando Norris, the reigning champion, earns far more than him. The McLaren driver, who won the title last year, earns 25 million – almost seventeen times as much as the man who took it from him. Fernando Alonso, aged 45, receives 15 from Aston Martin. Carlos Sainz, Alexander Albon, Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly are on around ten million, as is Lance Stroll, who is the son of Aston Martin’s owner and has an open-ended contract. The figures drop sharply from there, with seven million for Sergio Perez at Cadillac, six for Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Ocon, and four for Isack Hadjar and Valtteri Bottas.

Such a gap depends on when Antonelli signed. The contract with Mercedes was signed in the summer of 2024, when he was eighteen and racing in Formula 2, and it secured him the seat that Hamilton was vacating to move to Maranello. Salaries in Formula 1 are set upon signing and remain the same until the contract expires, and on the day he signed, Antonelli had not yet competed in a Grand Prix.

For Hamilton, the opposite is true. He turned 41 in January and hasn’t won a title since 2020, but Ferrari is paying him 55 million a year until 2027, with an option for 2028. Maranello’s calculations, after all, relate more to the brand than to the track: according to some estimates, the Briton’s presence would have brought the Scuderia over 100 million in additional sponsorship revenue last season alone, particularly in the British market.

On top of the fixed salary come performance-related bonuses, and for Antonelli, the title changes the figures. According to QuiFinanza, with the World Championship win, the bonuses could take the total to over 15 million dollars. This remains an estimate, like all the figures circulating in the paddock.

These figures could soon change for everyone, starting with Verstappen. His contract with Red Bull runs until 2028, but there has long been talk of a clause that would allow him to leave at the end of the season, with McLaren and Mercedes among the possible destinations. Russell’s contract expires at the end of 2026, with an option for a further twelve months.

The same applies to Antonelli. His contract expires in 2027, but with a world title under his belt, Mercedes has no reason to wait: as we wrote on 3 November, the next deal is expected to be worth around thirty million euros per season – twenty times the amount he earned when he won the World Championship. Meanwhile, at the age of twenty, the world champion washes his road-going Mercedes himself and still lives on his parents’ allowance – the very same parents with whom he celebrated the title at the track.