Lewis Hamilton

Guess what Lewis Hamilton did when he returned to England for the first time as Formula One world champion? Ignoring the advice of those who said that he would cause a riot if he was seen on the streets of his home town, Britain’s new sporting superstar and Nicole Scherzinger, the American pop singer, popped down to the flicks in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, north of London, to watch the new James Bond film.

Hamilton, who clinched the world title on Sunday at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, is a big Bond fan and he loved the latest blockbuster, Quantum of Solace. He and Scherzinger enjoyed a roast chicken supper on Tuesday night with Hamilton’s father, Anthony, and his stepmother, Linda, at their home outside Stevenage before heading off to the cinema, where they watched the film while munching through a tub of popcorn, just like any other young couple.

“People say things are going to be even more crazy now that I am champion, but I still intend to enjoy my life,” said Hamilton, who returned in triumph on Wednesday to the futuristic McLaren Mercedes team headquarters near Woking, Surrey, where 1,800 fellow employees were waiting to greet him. “So we did it all in the best way we could because it is not always that you are able to go unrecognised. I think we just happened to be there at the right time and no one noticed.”

Revelations of romantic nights in the delights of downtown Stevenage apart, Hamilton was keen to emphasise that he and Scherzinger, who met late last year at a music awards ceremony in Munich, are not engaged and the expensive-looking diamond ring worn by the singer on her engagement finger during the McLaren visit had not been bought by him.

There can be little doubt, though, that the Hawaiian-born lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, who, at 30, is seven years Hamilton’s senior, is becoming a big part of his life. She is known to spend time with him at his adopted home in Geneva and was a prominent figure in the McLaren hospitality area at Interlagos, where she urged her man to victory, whispering to herself: “Come on baby, come on baby.”

After dinner and before the film, Britain’s ninth Formula One world champion, whose career earnings could top £500 million, drove Scherzinger slowly around his old Stevenage stamping ground, the streets of the Shephall council estate where he was brought up and where he first raced go-karts. They stopped by the church where he was baptised, the local shopping mall, his primary school and the small end-of-terrace council house at No 57, Peartree Way, where Hamilton spent his childhood.