Briton to keep $24M salary

LONDON—One of the worst-kept secrets in motor racing was finally made official last Friday when Lewis Hamilton confirmed he was leaving McLaren for Mercedes.

In a move that had been openly discussed since the end of July, the British driver will retain his huge salary—reportedly more than £15 million ($24 million)—and have greater freedom in enhancing his earnings through personal sponsorship in a three-year deal that will take him past his 30th birthday.

Hamilton’s departure from McLaren after six years as their leading Formula One driver and an association that started when he was 13 years old immediately triggered a series of other moves. The 27-year-old racer will replace the legendary seven-time drivers champion Michael Schumacher, now 43, at Mercedes and be replaced at McLaren by young Mexican Sergio Perez, 22.

This leaves a vacancy at Perez’s former team Sauber, the only Swiss outfit in the sport, and a question mark hanging over the future of the most successful driver F1 driver of all time, Schumacher.

It also leaves Ferrari reconsidering the identity of their favored driver to replace struggling Brazilian Felipe Massa as Spaniard Fernando Alonso’s partner in the future, if and when Massa is released.

For Schumacher, the options will be plentiful. Mercedes may wish to retain him to provide continuity as Hamilton beds in alongside another German, Nico Rosberg, whom he knows well from their Formula A karting days in the Mercedes junior system in 2000.

Mixed-race Hamilton’s upbringing on a social housing scheme is a world apart from flaxen-haired Rosberg’s gilded life in Monte Carlo as the son of a multimillionaire F1 champion, sometimes causing tensions.

But both have done a lot of growing up in the last decade and their close friendship has survived to be reborn as a racing partnership pregnant with potential.