Hamilton closes in on £120m contract

LEWIS HAMILTON has said he is about to end his will-he-or-won’t-he contract saga by signing a new Mercedes deal, believed to be worth £120million, before the Monaco Grand Prix.

The double world champion dropped a clear hint that the news will then be announced at the world’s most glamorous motor race a week on Sunday.

Speaking after finishing second to Nico Rosberg at last weekend’s Spanish panish Grand Prix, Hamilton said: ‘I will haveve some news for you u in Monaco . . . ’

If so, and there is not yet another hitch, it will end the tortuous negotiations that go back a year.

The process wasas protracted by the he Mercedes boardd in Stuttgart, who lookk tot dod things by the book and were reluctant to wreck their pay structure by agreeing to Hamilton’s demands.

The Englishman, 30, also asked to keep his image rights, his trophies and winning cars. Usually, trophies and cars stay with the team while drivers sometimes receive replicas.

From his earliest days, Hamilton cherished keeping his trophies at home, resenting having to give back annual prizes so they could be passed to the next winner.

Both Mercedes and Hamilton are keeping quiet about details of the agreement they have apparently reached, but it seems likely the driver will earn in the region of £40m a year, making him the best paid driver on the grid alongside Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Maurizio Arrivebene, the Ferrari team principal, has already ruled out signing Hamilton, leaving hhim with no suitor who could promise a car and personnel to equal those at Mercedes. Hamilton has also negotiated his own deal — even handing pieces off paper to team principal Niki Lauda with his latest, hand-written contract requests. He has had help from his London-based lawyer Sue Thackeray, a long-time member of the Hamilton family’s inner circle. Hamilton trusts her implicitly.

By cutting out his old manager, Simon Fuller, Hamilton, who lives in tax exile in Monaco, now has no need to share his money with anyone.

He must feel like the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.