Lewis Hamilton has signed a £100million deal to stay at Mercedes - the biggest in British sporting history.
As revealed by Mirror Sport the 30-year-old has ended almost 12 months of speculation with a new three-year deal that will tie him to the German car giant until the end of 2018.
Two-time F1 world champion Hamilton will be earning just over £30m a year plus bonuses, although he will still trail behind track rival Sebastian Vettel who signed an £50 million deal with F1’s biggest-payers Ferrari.
Hamilton negotiated the contract himself, a process he described as a “pain in the ae”.
And ahead of this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, Mercedes confirmed the deal in a tweet.
"Mercedes is my home and I couldn't be happier to be staying here for another three years," he said after the deal was announced in Monaco.
"This is a company filled with real passionate racers, from the boardroom to the factory floor, and an incredible hunger to win.
"Even after the success of last year, that hunger is greater than ever - and it's the same for me, too.
"The Mercedes car I am driving right now is the best I have ever had in my career; it's just so much fun to be out there every weekend, on the limit and fighting to win at every track.
"Mercedes-Benz began supporting me in 1998 so I am very proud that this contract means I will mark 20 years with Mercedes in 2018."
Talks were expected, initially, to be completed last December, but part of the delay is thought to have surrounded Hamilton’s desire to control his own image, including a clothing range and jewellery.
After finishing second to teammate Nico Rosberg in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton described reports that talks were deadlocked as “utter bo*s”.
Hamilton still holds a 20-point lead after five of the championship's 19 rounds, and the new deal is expected to see the extravagantly talented Brit’s coronation as the greatest driver of his generation.
Racing legend Sir Stirling Moss predicted Hamilton will go on to win five or six F1 titles and this deal is expected to be the path to, at least, his fourth.
The last three years have witnessed his emergence as a worldwide icon and the first driver to blur the boundaries between racer, sportsman and psuedo-rock star global celebrity.
He owns homes in Monte Carlo, Los Angeles, Colorado and Florida, and jets between them almost weekly on his $31m metallic candy-red Challenger 605, which costs £2,500 an hour to operate.
As well as a fleet of Mercedes' finest sports cars, including the AMG Black, last month his £3m car collection was boosted by a limited-edition Ferrari LaFerrari supercar and a £1.2m Pagani Zonda 760 LH.
A blue McLaren P1 has just arrived in the garage of his Monaco home. In California, he keeps a vintage 1967 Shelby GT500.
He may have split from one of the world’s most famous women - ex-Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger - but his fast-lane lifestyle has not abated, crossing the Atlantic four times in the last fortnight alone.
And 'Brand Hamilton' has now taken on a serious marketing edge: he travels with a personal stylist and his life is documented daily by friend, DJ and photographer Spinz Beats.
The world's biggest sporting contracts (per year):**
Sebastian Vettel, F1 2015 (Ferrari) £51.4m
Floyd Mayweather, boxing 2013 (Showtime) £46.3m
Kimi Raikkonen, F1 2007 (Ferrari) £32.8m
David Beckham, football 2007 (LA Galaxy) £32.1m
Michael Schumacher, F1 1996 (£20m) £20m
Clayton Kershaw, baseball 2014 (LA Dodgers) £19.75m
Max Scherzer, baseball 2015 (Washington Nationals) £19.3m
Miguel Cabrera, baseball 2014 (Detroit Tigers) £18.8m
Alex Rodriguez, baseball 2008 (NY Yankees) £17.7m
Wayne Rooney, football 2015 (Man United)
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