Formula 1: Who are the highest paid drivers for the 2019 season?
By Asher Fair
8. Carlos Sainz Jr. – $4,000,000
McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr. is Formula 1’s eighth highest paid driver for the 2019 season with a salary of $4,000,000.
Like Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly and Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Sainz Jr. is one of the six drivers who drove in Formula 1 last season but are set to drive for different teams in the 2019 season.
Sainz Jr.’s Formula 1 career began at the beginning of the 2015 season, and he has not missed a single race since the 2015 season began. He drove for Scuderia Toro Rosso, the Red Bull Racing junior team, on a full-time basis throughout the 2015 and 2016 seasons, and he continued to do so for much of the 2017 season.
But after the first 16 races of the 20-race 2017 season, the 24-year-old Spaniard began driving for Renault, the team for which he drove to wrap up the 2017 season and throughout the entirety of the 2018 season before making the move to McLaren.
In his 81 career Formula 1 starts, Sainz Jr.’s career-high finish is his fourth place finish, which he recorded in the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix. He earned a career-high finish of ninth in the driver standings in the 2017 season. His average career starting position is 11.6 and his average career finishing position is 11.8.