Lewis Hamilton pays for tickets

Lewis Hamilton has to buy tickets so his family can watch him race.

The 31-year-old driver – who has been the Formula One World Champion for the last two years – admitted he doesn’t get many complementary passes for his loved ones to see him in action, so he is happy to pay out himself in order for them to be trackside.

He said: "It varies every year, one family member wants to come and the other ones stay home because they’ve been already.

"What’s crazy is that, I don’t ever get a lot of passes so I buy passes for family.

" You’d think you can get whatever you want, but it’s really not the case. People ask to come and I’m like ‘I only have two passes’."

But even if all his family are at the race, Lewis – who has been romantically linked with the likes of Rita Ora and Barbara Palvin in recent weeks – doesn’t get to spend much time with them on race days.

He told BBC Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw: "My family, I don’t ever get to see them before I’m in the car, I mean they’re massively supportive and probably it’s a lot of them…

"I’m not sure if they’re [all] fully conscious of how dangerous what I do is. But they’re not fazed by it – my aunty will be like ‘Go do your thing, go get it!’"

When he gets some time off, Lewis is looking forward to spending time in Grenada with his family who live there.

He said: "What I do know is that I will head out to carnival, which I love, this year and being out in the Caribbean, which is where my dad’s side of the family is from.

"I feel very at home over there and it’s the music. Definitely gotta do that, maybe I’ll stay out there and see my grandad. I haven’t seen him for a long time and he’s getting old, he’s got dementia, I wanna make sure that I spend time with him even if him doesn’t remember who I am."