F1 Gossip: Hamilton, Verstappen & Alonso top earners in 2022

- RacingNews365.com has revealed its estimated Formula 1 driver salaries for 2022.

Unsurprisingly, Hamilton tops the list with an estimated salary of $40 million a year, while Max Verstappen is on roughly $25 million a year. Fernando Alonso completes the top three with $20 million.

- Also according to RacingNews365.com, F1 will make several major changes to its weekend schedule for 2022.

One is the return of 90-minute Friday practice sessions - in 2021, they were only 60 minutes.

All grands prix in 2022 will now take place over three days, rather than four, with media commitments taking place on Friday morning ahead of FP1.

- With Ferrari set to unveil its 2022 challenger on February 17, Gazetta Dello Sport has described it as an “aggressive project” - similar to 2017 and 2018 when it was able to challenge Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for the majority of the season. 

- George Russell has completed his first official day as a Mercedes F1 driver.

“Today was my first official day in Brackley as a Mercedes driver,” Russell said. “I can’t wait to get started, obviously. I went around and met so many people today, went on the simulator and just preparing as best as possible to kick-start.”

- Sebastian Vettel has admitted that he was ‘hoping for more’ in his first season with Aston Martin.

“I think the team’s great; I really enjoy working with the team, and I think it’s been a big change obviously,” he told F1.com

“But no in terms of the results, obviously. The whole team and myself, we were hoping for more. I think we got hurt quite badly by the regulation changes as the team had a great car [in 2020] but not [in 2021], so we did what we could.”

- Alonso is confident he will be ‘100%’ ahead of the new season after undergoing jaw surgery. (AS)