Lewis Hamilton has more awards and memorabilia than any Formula 1 star in history – yet one thing is missing from his race-worn collection.
The 40-year-old has seven world championship titles and 105 race win trophies, but his helmet from his karting days was stolen.
A delighted Hamilton came face to face with a card of his hero SennatalkSPORT The iconic driver’s 1/1 superfractor (middle right) sold for a stunning $900ktalkSPORTThe Ferrari star brought central London to a standstill on Friday after attending the opening of the new Fanatics store on Regent Street.
After cutting the ribbon, the Brit racer took part in a surprise Q&A from delighted fans, with talkSPORT.com among those in the crowd.
During which Hamilton revealed he has a collection of around 400 race-worn helmets collected over his storied career.
However, F1’s No.44 admitted one will forever be missing after being stolen during his early days of karting in his birthplace of Stevenage.
He shared that the event took place in 2001, the same year a 16-year-old Hamilton moved from karting to race cars at Manor Motorsports.
Hamilton admitted that the helmet’s theft had not been investigated and was unable to explain how it could be retrieved.
The ex-Mercedes man was then left cracking up when a fan jokingly claimed that the person sitting next to him was probably the culprit.
‘Jeff Cards’, a well-known F1 trading card collector who owns a Hamilton card that sold for $900,000 (£712,512), was showing the motorsport icon the pieces he’d picked up over the years.
A grinning Hamilton said: “If you have the helmet…you might have that helmet?”, before he replied: “I can’t tell you!”
Hamilton then had the chance to cast an eye over F1 greats, both past and present, as part of Topps’ new ‘Lights Out’ collection.
Hamilton opened cards alongside Fanatics CEO Michael RubintalkSPORT The new Regents Street store has some of the best Hamilton collectors’ items aroundtalkSPORT Unfortunately, a helmet from his younger days has been stolenGettyAmong his pulls were his Ferrari predecessors Kimi Räikkönen and Nigel Mansell, but most special of all was his hero, Ayrton Senna.
He said: “There’s Kimi here…he never smiles in pictures!
“Senna is my favourite driver of all time. This is the guy who inspired me to be the man I am today.
“He’s the guy”, to which a fan instead told a smiling Hamilton that he was ‘the guy’ – and he wasn’t alone.
The hordes of people waiting to catch a glimpse of the driver and get inside the Fanatics store themselves stretched around the block.
Also within the 8,600 sq. ft, along with F1 merchandise, are collectables from across sport, Disney, and even Pokémon cards.
Hamilton said: “I’m actually pretty shocked to see how big this store is. This store is amazing. Front to back.
“It’s just amazing to see how these cards bring people together.I remember as a kid, there used to be these books that we used to collect and go to the store.
“I can’t remember how much, but it was like 10p or something like that.
“You’d get like five cards of all your football players, and we used to trade them all.
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“We were trading them all through the school days, like at lunch time. I remember the deals I was trying to do.
“I was trading them with some Sherbets and some sweets to get the best cards.”
Hamilton continued: “I was doing pretty good. I finished most of the books that we had.
“Like every year, we’d get a book of the Premier League. I love how it brings people together. It’s been incredible to see stuff like this.”
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