Hamilton rings the bell with McLaren!

The McLaren-Mercedes team has committed to keeping Lewis Hamilton with the team at least until 2012 through a future contract binding both parties and reaching the ‘pretty’ sum of 138 million dollars.

The British tabloid News of the World claims that Hamilton, who has just turned 23, will receive an average of 27 million dollars per season for at least the next five years.

For a simple comparison, in 2007 during his first F1 season, he earned ‘only’ 700,000 dollars, plus some bonuses.

The newspaper also claims that the driver will receive a base salary from McLaren in 2008 of 17 million dollars, plus another salary from Mercedes amounting to 6 million dollars. These constitute the base salaries to which, of course, bonuses and additional incentives of all kinds will be added.

« I have always said that I would be happy to stay with McLaren for the rest of my career, if the team wants me, » said Hamilton, who recently moved to Switzerland for quite fiscal reasons in view of this new contract!

« I have a very strong relationship with the team after being with them for so long, since my early steps in karting. I am ready to stay with them as long as it takes. »

« My relationship with the team throughout 2007 increasingly became more and more close-knit with everything that happened off the track. The way they supported me during the last race was admirable, » he concluded.