Formula 1: Who are the highest paid drivers for the 2019 season?
By Asher Fair
5. Valtteri Bottas – $8,500,000
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas is Formula 1’s fifth highest paid driver for the 2019 season with a salary of $8,500,000.
Like Rich Energy Haas teammates Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, and Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, Bottas is one of the eight drivers who are set to return to the teams for which they drove in the 2018 season in the 2019 season.
Bottas’s Formula 1 career began at the beginning of the 2012 season, and he has not missed a single race since the 2012 season began. The 29-year-old Finn drove for Williams from the 2013 season to the 2016 season before signing a deal to drive for Mercedes beginning in the 2017 season.
Bottas has driven for Mercedes ever since, and he has a contract to continue to do so through at least the 2019 season, as his current contract carries an additional one-year option that allows the Brackley-based team to retain him for the 2020 season if they choose to do so.
In his 118 career Formula 1 starts, Bottas has earned three victories, 30 podium finishes and six pole positions. He has earned all three of his victories and all six of his pole positions during his tenure driving for Mercedes. He earned a career-high finish of third place in the driver standings in the 2017 season. His average career starting position is 7.1 and his average career finishing position is 7.7.