Ferrari's big money F1 contracts: The drivers who succeeded and failed

Charles Leclerc has been handed a bumper new F1 deal to keep him at Ferrari for the coming years as he looks to end their elusive win drought.

Ferrari handing out big contracts isn’t anything new. The Scuderia have famously had the best drivers race for them over the last 20 years. Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel earned astonishing amounts of money during their time at Maranello.

Who succeeded and who failed? Did Ferrari splash out on the right driver?

Michael Schumacher

Following two title triumphs with Benetton, Schumacher made the switch to Ferrari in 1997. It was widely reported that Schumacher’s first Ferrari deal was worth in the region of £16 million.

Like now, Ferrari were in the midst of a barren run with several years without an F1 world title. At this time, it was Williams and McLaren dominating the sport as Ferrari, under Jean Todt’s leadership, started to build the team that would eventually rise to the top in the early 2000s.

Schumacher simply carried Ferrari in a time where they shouldn’t have even been in title contention. The German pushed Jacques Villeneuve close in 1997, and didn’t finish too far behind Mika Häkkinen in 1998.

Fast forward two years, Schumacher guided Ferrari to their first drivers’ crown since 1979. This soon led to four more titles for Schumacher, becoming F1’s first seven-time world champion.

Unexpectedly, his earnings went up, with Forbes reporting in 2004 that Schumacher’s base salary was $40 million ($80 million taking into account endorsements and sponsors).

The signing of Schumacher was an overriding success.

Kimi Raikkonen

Raikkonen rocked up at Ferrari as Schumacher’s replacement in 2007. He had been unfortunate to miss out on the 2003 and 2005 titles - one to Schumacher and the other to Alonso.

The Finn’s Ferrari career started in the best way possible as he won on debut in Australia. Despite a mid-season dip, Raikkonen turned it around and grew into the ascendancy. Remarkably, heading into the penultimate round of 2007, he was 17 points behind Lewis Hamilton (Effectively a win and a second place behind).

Against all the odds, Raikkonen - making the most of Hamilton’s nightmare races in Shanghai and Sao Paulo - secured the title in Brazil, and remarkably, 17 years later, Raikkonen is still Ferrari’s last world champion.

The success did stop there though as teammate Felipe Massa had the advantage in 2008, going head-to-head with Hamilton for the title, and in 2009 before his accident. It’s reported that Raikkonen earned a remarkable £120 million between 2007 and 2009 - taking inflation into account, that’s somewhere in the region of £190 million. 

Ferrari then decided to pay Raikkonen off to quit Ferrari to give up his place for Alonso. While Raikkonen achieved the ultimate goal of a world title, his record-breaking driver salary perhaps was unjustified given that overall Massa had the edge during their time together.

But he is still Ferrari’s most recent world champion…

Fernando Alonso

In search of a third world title, Alonso made the switch from Renault for 2010. The Spaniard was on an estimated £30 million per year - the highest-paid driver on the F1 grid at the time.

It proved to be justified as during a time where Ferrari never quite had the best car (relative to Red Bull), Alonso tended to extract the maximum out of it. While crucial mistakes from Alonso earlier in the 2010 season cost him vital points, a significant strategy blunder put him into traffic in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, handing the title to Vettel.

Two years later, Alonso enjoyed the best season of his F1 career in 2012, but it wasn’t still enough as Ferrari once again didn’t give him the tools to get over the line against Vettel. Alonso soon grew frustrated and was attracted by the revival of McLaren-Honda. 

In hindsight, a foolish move, but there’s no doubt that he didn’t let Ferrari down, Ferrari let him down.

Sebastian Vettel

Following in the footsteps of childhood hero Schumacher, it was Vettel who replaced Alonso in 2015.

The Daily Mail reported that Vettel’s initial three year deal to move from Red Bull to Ferrari was worth an astonishing £50 million per year.

Alongside Raikkonen, Vettel was given the mammoth task of taking down Mercedes. While Vettel did enjoy two of his best seasons in F1 with Ferrari, in 2015 and 2017, Mercedes’ advantage was too great.

Admittedly, Vettel’s form and performances deteriorated by 2018, when he finally had a car capable of winning the title, and the arrival of Leclerc 12 months later only complicated things. Ferrari soon lost faith in Vettel with them announcing Carlos Sainz as his replacement for 2021 ahead of the COVID-hit 2020 campaign.