Lewis Hamilton has opened up on the stresses of combining his will to win in Formula 1 with a normal life.
The six-time world champion has always been one of the more high profile drivers on the grid since debuting with McLaren in 2007, whether it be for his talent on the track or the lifestyle he led off it.
Hamilton notably was involved with singer Nicole Scherzinger during his time at McLaren but after splitting, he diverted his interests elsewhere into music and also fashion having been given greater freedom after joining Mercedes.
While some have occasionally considered those activities a distraction, Lewis and even his team have denied that is the case but he does admit it is all relative.
“I think it’s probably similar to most sportsmen and women really,” Hamilton explained via Crash.net on the impact racing in F1 has on his life.
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“It may be slightly different in that we are travelling as much as we are and you are just away for crazy amounts of time, so that’s probably an additional weight load that makes it really, really tough to hold down a good relationship if things aren’t quite perfect.
“But I think in general for athletes, having the right mindset and trying to find the right balance of how dedicated you are as opposed to resting back and enjoying your quality time, all these different things.
“It’s different for everyone, but having spoken and read about other athletes in different sports, it’s obviously quite similar for all of us.”
Hamilton outlined that final point by combining his more public approach to the most private driver on the grid, who doesn’t have any official forms of social media at all.
“There are those that manage it, look at Seb [Vettel],” he added. “There are many athletes who have generally happy lives in the background but I for one also find that incredibly difficult.
“With your goal to be as competitive as you can be, ultimately you want to be 100 per cent committed because you never want to be any less committed than the person next to you, and there are certain things that are also added on responsibilities or extra load bearings that you can take away from that.
“There’s only a certain amount of you as a whole that you can give to everything. It depends how much of a sacrifice you want to make.”