Pilots’ salaries in 2009

Kimi Räikkönen is not desperate to leave the Ferrari team when considering his salary for the year. The publication of the Drivers’ salaries for 2009 shows that Kimi Räikkönen’s contract is worth more than double the second highest income this season.

The list published by the magazine Arabian Business showed that the total salaries of drivers in 2009 reached 130 million dollars. This reinforces the FIA’s ideas to keep driver salaries out of the capped budgets proposed earlier in the season.

At the top of the list, which was somewhat predictable, are the three world champions, with Kimi Räikkönen, Lewis Hamilton, and Fernando Alonso. But the Finn with Ferrari has risen to a value of $45 million, about $27 million more than the McLaren driver and $30 million more than the contract of the double world champion Fernando Alonso at Renault.

Presumably, at Scuderia Ferrari, his paycheck was not linked to his results throughout the 2009 season. Although the figure was very high, Toyota and McLaren did not hide their attempts to find an agreement with the Finn. But everything seems to be stalled simply because expectations revolve around his salary.

Behind the leading trio, driver Nico Rosberg is better off with his $8.5 million for his work in 2009. Meanwhile, reigning world champion Jenson Button, who is currently in talks to increase his salary at Brawn GP, received $5 million this season with his title. His teammate Rubens Barrichello has to make do, so to speak, with a paltry $1 million.

At the bottom of the list, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Adrian Sutil, Romain Grosjean, and Kazuki Nakajima did not receive any salary this year, not a single penny. Unfortunately, there were no details on the salaries of Sébastien Bourdais or Nelson Piquet Jr.

The journalist Tom Rubython, who published this list, noted: « We are in a global recession, but if you are an F1 driver, it means you have earned a fortune this year. These figures are only the basic salaries and do not include sponsorship and other earnings, which can often be three times this amount. »