Lewis Hamilton says he is feeling “comfortable in my skin”, adding that he does not care whether his lifestyle measures up to expectations.
The Briton was a star on track from the get-go with McLaren, nearly winning the Formula One title as a 22-year-old rookie in 2007 before claiming his first world championship at the next attempt. Now contesting his 10th season, Hamilton has also asserted himself off track, though his celebrity lifestyle regularly comes under scrutiny.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, the triple world champion explains how he has come of age.
“What I’m doing now isn’t about having my youth,” he said. “It’s just being able to be me. Dress the way I want to dress and be who I want to be.
“From the moment I got into F1 with McLaren, there was an immediate expectation: ‘dress like this, this is how all the other drivers dress’. I said: “But this is who I am” and it was not accepted at the beginning but now I can say “you have no choice”.
“That’s really why I’m in a more comfortable place now because I’m comfortable in my skin, I’m comfortable in who I am and what I do and the life that I live and just because it’s different to everyone else’s...
“When I first started, people said, “this is how a British driver is”. But I’m not the same as the others so you just have to understand this is how it is and deal with it.”
Still, Hamilton admits his early years spent touring the UK to take part in karting races prevented him from living a normal life as a child.
“The time when I opened up and blossomed was delayed massively,” the 31-year-old added. “I wasn’t doing normal things. I wasn’t going out with my friends on the weekends, which is a different path. I was karting every weekend.
“I wasn’t doing those things with my friends, which I would have loved to do. So I lost a large chunk of my childhood through that. Because of that, it wasn’t the easiest to socialise and all these different things carried on from there.”
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