Newsroom
Formula 1 is all about speed, glam, and jaw-dropping paychecks, and apparently, not all of it is real. While reigning champ Max Verstappen reportedly pulls in a mind-blowing €58 million a year from Red Bull, it’s what the drivers make off Instagram that might make you do a double take.
Experts at Fanatix dug into the social media accounts of F1’s top stars and found that some of their followers aren’t exactly… human. Enter the “phantom followers,” bots, fake accounts, or random profiles that don’t actually exist but still count toward a driver’s follower tally. Think of them as ghost fans cheering silently from the internet.
Lewis Hamilton tops the list with 41.6 million Instagram fans, but nearly 28%, more than 11 million, are phantom accounts. That’s not just a lot of zeros; it translates to a potential €31,707 from just one post, paid directly by brands who think those followers are real. For perspective, the average European would have to work nearly six months full-time to make that in one go.
Verstappen ranks third on the “bot paycheck” leaderboard, with 3.1 million fake followers potentially adding €8,518 per post to his Instagram haul. Charles Leclerc, despite having fewer fake followers proportionally, could still rake in €9,247 per post from his 3.3 million phantom fans.
And then there’s Fernando Alonso, who takes the crown for highest share of fake followers: over one-third of his 7.6 million fans are bots, potentially pocketing him more than €7,100 per sponsored post. Even the teams aren’t safe; McLaren has nearly 29% of its 16.2 million Instagram followers flagged as fake, while Red Bull clocks in as the “cleanest” at just over 23%.
So yes, F1 drivers make insane money on the track, but it turns out they’re also cashing in off fans who exist only online. While the real fans scream in the grandstands, the digital ghosts quietly line up to fatten these drivers’ wallets. In the world of Formula 1, even phantom followers are racing to the bank.
*To read the full study, click here.
