F1 driver salary cap: Ferrari already aligned, Mercedes and Red Bull over the limit. F1 driver salary cap.

This year, for the first time in the long history of Formula 1, a sending limit has been introduced for the teams. The so-called budget cap, a limit that has been set at 145 million dollars for each team and which will gradually decrease over the next few years. This is a rule that teams have set themselves to reduce costs, a revolution that aims to limit the excessive power of the richest teams, above all Mercedes, Red Bull and Scuderia Ferrari. Currently, however, the contracts of the drivers and the main team managers are excluded from this ‘package’.

The intention of Formula 1, however, is to create in the next few years an additional limit that applies precisely to the drivers. The goal is always to avoid costs that are too expensive for the teams. The rumors inform of a salary cap for each line-up set at $30 million. Within this figure, the two drivers and the possible third driver would be included. Evaluating the contracts in place in 2021, according to the figures reported by the British site RaceFans, it would emerge that only two teams would exceed this hypothetical Salary Cap. The teams are Mercedes and Red Bull.

The figure is not surprising, given that the two teams have the two highest paid drivers in the paddock at their service: Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. All the other eight teams, on the other hand, would already respect the parameters, at least as regards the line-up of the starting drivers. McLaren, Ferrari, Alpine and Aston Martin are all in a range of 20 to 25 million euros in driver salaries. The Maranello team in particular is at 22: 12 for Charles Leclerc, whose contract will expire in 2024, and 10 for Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard has signed for two seasons and his current contract is valid until 2022.

Obviously well below the threshold of this possible Cap are all the other teams. Alfa Romeo stands at 11 million, burdened above all by the salary of Kimi Raikkonen. Williams and Haas spend $ 2 million each in salary for drivers. The best value for money of the entire paddock could then be that of the Alpha Tauri. Just 5.5 million dollars spent on the Gasly-Tsunoda duo which, if the car’s performance remains the same, could even push the Faenza-based team to compete for third place in the constructor’s championship.