Alonso still motorsport's top earner, just!

[John S]

Nando & Lewis vie for top spot, Nascar folk take 5 spots in top ten.          
Wow! - in ninth Danica sure has them queuing to use her brand. 
Poor old Cos might need to make an appointment with the Doctor,  - no not with Rossi.     
 
Top ten motorsport earners: (courtesy of the latest Forbes rich list.)
1. Fernando Alonso F1 - $30m (salary/winnnings $28m; endorsements $2m)
2. Lewis Hamilton, F1 - $27.5m (salary/winnnings $26m; endorsements $1.5m)
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr, NASCAR - $26m (salary/winnnings $13m; endorsements $13m)
4. Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR - $24m (salary/winnnings $17.3m; endorsements $6.7m)
5. Valentino Rossi, MotoGP - $22m (salary/winnnings $12m; endorsements $10m)
6. Tony Stewart, NASCAR - $18.5m (salary/winnnings $12.5m; endorsements $6m)
7. Jeff Gordon, NASCAR - $18.2m (salary/winnnings $12.7m; endorsements $5.5m)
8. Sebastian Vettel, F1 - $18m (salary/winnnings $17m; endorsements $1m)
9. Danica Patrick, NASCAR - $15m (salary/winnnings $6m; endorsements $9m)
10. Jenson Button, F1 - $14m (salary/winnnings $14m)

[Scott]

What's telling to me is that Lewis's branding doesn't seem to be working out that well.  He should hire Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s sponsor hunter by the look of it.

[cosworth151]

And look who is the only one who's endorsements exceed her winnings, by 50%.

[Jericoke]

It doesn't tell the whole story, as many top NASCAR drivers are now also team owners.  Their salary as a racer is almost inconsequential to their revenue as owners.  (Which is a huge problem for Tony Stewart, who broke his leg running sprint cars, and has lost his top driver (Tony Stewart), which has his sponsors looking elsewhere)

I also think that Hamilton's endorsement opportunities are smaller than Alonso's.  Fernando basically has all of Italy and Spain without competition, while Lewis must share Britain with another WDC, and several racers, and forget about Germany, how can he possibly out endorse their homegrown multiple WDC winners?

Still, having a slice of Germany and a slice of Britain is better than being 'stuck' at McLaren (from an endorsement point of view).

[Scott]

Just saying that at one point during all the stories about his departure from Mclaren, there were a couple about Lewis wanting to escape Mclaren's branding infrastructure so he could establish himself as his own brand (and that Merc was going to more tolerant of that).  So far it seems he hasn't done all that well so far

To be fair, these income stories often are dated or incomplete...well, because some stuff is simply private, and if they aren't private from the media, then they probably aren't very private from the tax collectors.  I remember reading stories of Tiger Woods income that varied by as much as $30m a year, and other stories about his endorsements being paid directly into hidden offshore accounts where nobody could come close to verifying the amounts.

[cosworth151]

To be fair to Hamilton, he did make $1.5 million more in endorsements than Button. While not as much as some of the others on the list, it would certainly be enough to keep me in beer & chips (crisps, for our Brit brethren) for at least a full F1 season.

[Warmwater]

Jenson Bottom is on the list?  McLaren must have money to burn!

Maybe they should hire Filipe....
 

[lkjohnson1950]

At least he'd be less likely to run into Button.