1. Lewis Hamilton ($39 million)
And the highest-paid F1 driver is… the reigning world champion, Lewis Hamilton!
Hamilton has been into F1 racing since he was ten. Young Hamilton met McLaren team’s principal, Ron Dennis, at the Autosport Awards and said, “I want to race for you one day. I want to race for McLaren.”
Three years later, McLaren and Mercedes-Benz signed him up to their Young Driver Support Program. From there, his winning streak started.
He won the British Formula Renault, Formula 3 Euroseries, and GP2 Championships. But that was just the start of his career. In his first season in F1, he set numerous records while finishing as runner-up in the 2007 F1 Championship.
He has been with Mercedes team ever since. The team which gives him $36 million of paycheck in addition to $3 million of endorsement payment. The total $39 million payment put him as Forbes’s number 15.
