Not yet five full months into Lewis Hamilton’s formula one career, his so-called ‘honeymoon period’ with the British media appears over.
Fleet Street newspapers and paparazzi photographers have so far spent F1’s summer break tracking the 22-year-old McLaren driver on a vacation in St Tropez, where he has been spending time with an unidentified ‘brunette’ beauty.
And after publishing photos of the championship leader riding a wave on a jet-ski, the Sunday Mirror wondered in a headline, “Er, Lewis.. should you REALLY be doing that?”
The reporter observed that Hamilton “had no safety features, crash helmet or medical teams on standby in case he crashed”, and that his long-term girlfriend Jodia will also be “worried” by his jaunts.
The Daily Mail published long-lens photos of the Briton kissing and frolicking with the bikini-clad ‘mystery brunette’ on McLaren shareholder Mansour Ojjeh’s 72-metre luxury yacht, speculating that Hamilton had “traded in” Jodia for a model more in line with his newfound fame and fortune.
The newspaper said Hong Kong-based Jodia “stood by him” when he was a “penniless go-kart racer”, while Hamilton “has done little to spare her feelings”.
It is also claimed that a team of property specialists are now scouring Monaco for a luxury apartment for their client, and that “only the finest hotel suites will do” now for Hamilton.
He does not “seem remotely fazed by the moneyed circles into which he has suddenly been catapulted. In fact, those on the inside of the sport say he has come to expect and demand nothing but the best,” the Mail wrote.
