Lewis Hamilton has taken the headlines for all the right reasons this week, as an incredible act of generosity saw fans stunned by the British hero.
The seven-time world champions took all 20 drivers out for a meal before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to celebrate the career of Sebastian Vettel, with the German, who is a formal rival of Hamilton, set to retire following this weekend’s race.
Not only did the Mercedes driver plan the meal, he also picked up the bill, much to the amazement of the other drivers.
Hamilton has now revealed that this is not the only time he has organised a night out for the F1 grid, however he admitted that his attempts to pay for the evening did not go down as well in 2016 in Shanghai.
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The Brit suggested that it would be easier if all the drivers allowed him to pay for the meal, rather than completing multiple different transactions, but suggested that his idea did not go down too well with some of the drivers on the grid that year.
“It was a little bit silly really, ridiculous because someone said: ‘Let’s share the bill’, so 18 drivers shared a bill which is just insane. It probably wasn’t really that expensive.
“I did say ‘why don’t I just get it now, or two of us get it now, and then the next time someone else gets it?’ And they are like ‘no, no, no, I want to pay individually,” told the 37-year-old.
“We all got a receipt, 18 receipts, 18 credit cards, it was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I have never seen anything like that before.”
Since the meal, which was not attended by Kimi Raikkonen, Rio Haryanto, Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen, Hamilton has suggested that he believes it was his teammate Nico Rosberg who intervened and prevented his kind deed.
The German beat Hamilton to the title that year, and has claimed that it was not as big of a deal as his former teammate is making out, suggesting that drivers have an unwritten rule on how to pay for evenings out.
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“Really? Interesting,” said Rosberg when asked about Hamilton’s story.
“From what I can remember, the hidden agreement usually is that the world champion pays, but that might just be my opinion.”
Hamilton goes into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix looking to banish the demons of 2021, with it seemingly written in the stars that he will prevent his first ever winless season at the circuit which he experienced the heartbreak of a lifetime, seeing his eighth world title snatched away from him on the final lap of the season.