Performance Related Pay

It has been reported in various news outlets that if McLaren's Lewis Hamilton wins two consecutive World Championships, Ron Dennis will personally hand over the keys to the one and only McLaren F1 LM prototype that currently has pride of place at the company's Woking headquarters.

There appears to be some conflict as to the terms of the deal he shook on with Dennis. F1 Racing magazine are reporting that he must win the driver's title for the next two years running to claim his new toy, while that bastion of journalistic integrity The Sun are claiming that if McLaren win both drover an constructor titles this year then the keys are his. The former would seem to make more sense to me, as it would hardly be fair for Hamilton to receive the award for the constructor's title given that it winning that title will likely have just as big a contribution from Heikki Kovalainen. Or Felipe Massa, whichever way you choose to look at it...

Only five customer LMs were ever built, all sold pretty much instantly. The sixth car, the McLaren Orange prototype, is the only other car of its type in existence and as such has an estimated value of $4,000,000 US. That's quite some performance bonus! Especially considering he is estimated to be earning something in the region of £10,000,000 per year as a basic salary, and that's before you take into account the bonus pocket money his contract stipulates he will earn for each point, each race victory etc. And then of course there'll be the myriad multi-million dollar sponsorship and endorsement deals...

Yep, he's one lucky, lucky boy alright.