Nominal vs present value
Local display: $43.7m · Rebased to 2024 USD via US CPI-U
How the total breaks down
Ferrari salary & winnings. Reported at roughly €30m ($37m) a year by Business Book GP, nearly double his closest F1 rival.
Endorsements. A smaller personal-sponsorship slice than Senna or Mickelson-scale endorsement stars in other sports.
Impact 83
- Was F1's clear highest-paid driver for most of a decade without a title that year
- Nearly doubled the retainer of every other driver on the 2012 grid
- Kept Ferrari's wage bill the sport's benchmark even during a competitive drought
Alonso's Ferrari retainer, reported at roughly double what McLaren was paying Hamilton and Button in the same season, showed that F1 pay had stopped tracking championships year to year and started tracking reputation over a full career. Ferrari kept paying at that level through a run without a title, betting — correctly, in commercial terms — that Alonso's name alone justified the number.
Alonso never won a title with Ferrari, but for most of the early 2010s he was comfortably F1's best-paid driver, on a retainer reported at roughly €30 million a year — nearly double what McLaren was paying Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button combined. Forbes' $32 million estimate for 2012 reflected a driver whose value to Ferrari had become almost entirely decoupled from that season's championship table.