Lewis Hamilton didn't just change teams in 2025 – he changed tax brackets. We estimate Lewis Hamilton hoovered up around $136m, with Mad Max Verstappen not far behind on roughly $123m.
On our rough maths, the top five F1 earners: Hamo on about $136m, Mad Max around $123m, Leaping Lando somewhere in the $94m-$101m band, Oscar in the $61m-$65m zone and Charles Leclerc sitting on roughly $56m-$63m.
Who drove best in 2025?
My top five: Verstappen, Norris, Piastri, Leclerc and George Russell. MM tops it because he did peak-Max things in a car that spent the first third of the year trying to ruin his weekend. LL gets silver for finally finding the mental switch that turns "almost" into "champion". Piastri is third – cool as a tax auditor and twice as lethal.