F1 News
Hamilton earns a lot with Mercedes, but has yet to surpass this paycheck
- GPblog.com
While Mercedes and Hamilton are still negotiating about a possible new contract, speculations fly regarding the cause of the disagreement between Mercedes and their most expensive employee. According to most sources money is not the problem, it never has been. But how much does Hamilton earn compared to the other big earners in the sport?
Update 8th February
It is unknown how much Hamilton will earn with his new contract with Mercedes. However, the chances do not seem that he will earn significantly more than in recent seasons.
Following that comparison, one automatically ends up with Michael Schumacher, who, in his heydays, was the highest-paid sportsman in the world. However, Schumacher earned most of his fortune from individual sponsorship deals. Shell alone is said to have paid him 10 million a year for wearing their branded cap. Schumacher's base salary in 2012 was just over $30 million, according to Forbes.
Hamilton the richest F1 driver for some time
In that respect, Hamilton leaves the German far behind. In fact, Mercedes transferred about $54 million a year to him in recent years. In his previous contract, it was about 46 million dollars a year. In the list of total accumulated wealth (based on salary alone) Hamilton, with over 500 million dollars, leaves the competition far behind. Even Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari does not come close.
However, there is one amount Hamilton cannot match and that concerns the millions earned by Kimi Raikkonen during his first period at Ferrari. His annual salary was around $51 million during his first stint at Ferrari, but because there were fewer races in the season, his earnings per Grand Prix were around $100,000 higher.