Revealed: Who is the best value-for-money driver on the F1 2024 grid?
With salaries and crash damage, F1 drivers are an expensive business.
Between salaries and crash costs, it can be an expensive business of getting F1 points for a team.
With the F1 2024 season over, we are looking back to see which teams got the most bang for their buck and which driver was the most cost effective.
Who was the most cost effective F1 driver in 2024?
How the ranking was made
Finances in F1 can be a tricky thing to report on given the secrecy around them but we have tried to source the most legitimate figures from a number of publications, mainly prominent business magazine Forbes.
For the cost of crashes, we have gathered the work of Reddit user ‘basspro24chevy’ but again, these are estimates as only the teams will know how much each part costs. It also includes only the parts that were replaced so even though Pierre Gasly damaged his floor in the Japanese Grand Prix, his crash cost is at $0.
After which it was a case of adding the two figures together before dividing the total by the number of points they scored this season.
To make things fair, we have only included drivers who were on the grid for the full season and it also ignores other aspects such as merchandise sales and sponsorship because accurate information on those figures is not publicly available.
Nico Hulkenberg is F1’s most cost effective driver
Given Nico Hulkenberg was a free agent at the time, Haas held all the cards when they were negotiating with the German in 2023 and the result was him returning to the grid on a $2 million contract, one of the cheapest on the grid.
But it has proved to be an incredibly good value deal for the team with Hulkenerg scoring a combined 50 points for Haas over the course of two years.
41 of them came this year alone which means Hulkenberg cost just $60,341 per points scored in F1, the lowest of any driver on the grid.
Hulkenberg’s fine form has seen him rewarded with a move to Audi in 2025 where he is expected to earn $5 million a year.
Stake duo the most expensive drivers on the grid
It was a miserable year for Stake and one that very nearly looked like it may end pointless but even Zhou Guanyu’s four in Qatar did little to close the gap to the rest of the field.
It is particularly grim reading for Valtteri Bottas who despite having the 11th most lucrative deal on the grid, was unable to score any points meaning $10,375,000 was spent by Stake for no reward.
Zhou was on much less at $2 million a year but even still, four points meant each one of those cost $854,750 when you factor in crash damage.
After the Stake duo was Alex Albon on $638,729 per point before Fernando Alonso with his $27,500,000 salary and 70 points is fourth worst on $420,843.
Max Verstappen a costly asset despite winning the World Championship
You may think that winning another world title and securing 437 points would put Max Verstappen very7 high on this list but his salary is so astronomical that he finds himself the 10th most cost effective driver.
Forbes reports that the Dutchman is paid a base salary of $50 million plus $15 million in bonuses (which he presumably hit) and with $910,000 worth of crash damage, his cost-per-point ratio was $173,707.
The second highest paid driver on the grid Lewis Hamilton came in at $258,049 having scored 223 points to offset his $57 million salary.
Top drivers in top teams not on eye-watering contracts make for best returns
While Hamilton and Verstappen are both among some of the best drivers on the grid, their huge salaries make them a costly asset and the data shows that drivers on cheaper but still big deals dominated the top five.
Aside from the outlier of Hulkenberg, the top five is made up of the four drivers from McLaren and Ferrari with Carlos Sainz leading the way at $76,210 per point. Oscar Piastri is close behind though on $77,312 per point.
Charles Leclerc costs $79,233 per point while Lando Norris’ $35 million salary means he is costing McLaren $94,711 per point.
Top drivers show why they are worth the big bucks
Generally, the better paid the driver is, the higher up the list they are but that is not a guarantee that money always equals success. Hamilton and Alonso both in the bottom half show that huge contracts are not always offset by points scoring while the performance of Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda show the value in not breaking the bank.
As always though, these figures are the cost of doing business for many of the teams with sponsorships and prize money bringing in far more money than going out but, for those at the bottom end of the order, deciding who to reward with a better deal can be a crucial decision.
The list in full
Valtteri Bottas (Stake) $10,375,000.00 per point
Zhou Gunayu (Stake) $854,750 per point
Alex Albon (Williams) $638,729 per point
Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) $420,843 per point
Kevin Magnussen (Haas) $401,250 per point
Esteban Ocon* (Alpine) $331,522 per point
Pierre Gasly (Alpine) $285,714 per point
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) $258,049 per point
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) $173,707 per point
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) $161,958 per point
Sergio Perez (Red Bull) $160,270 per point
George Russell (Mercedes) $107,465 per point
Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) $105,300 per point
Lando Norris (McLaren) $94,711 per point
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) $79,233 per point
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) $77,312 per point
Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) $76,210 per point
Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) $60,341 per point
*Drove one fewer race than the rest of the grid
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