Lewis Hamilton has been told the one thing that’s a bigger boost to his lap time ahead of any car upgrade – Nicole Scherzinger.

The Ferrari star, who recently opened up on why he doesn’t have a wife and children, was originally one-half of Formula 1’s IT couple.

The seven-time world champion had a highly-publicised on-off relationship with Pussycat Dolls’ Scherzinger from 2007 to 2015.

Hamilton was introduced to the singer by Black Eyed Peas star will.i.am at the MTV EMAs in 2007, just months after he’d made his F1 debut with McLaren.

Scherzinger soon became a regular fixture in the paddock as her Brit beau won the first of his driver titles the following year.

Her wild celebrations in the McLaren garage at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix when Hamilton’s dramatic overtake of Timo Glock at the final corner of the final lap of the season’s final race to clinch the championship remain the definitive F1 WAG moment decades later.

Hamilton endured a miserable defence of his first title, finishing fifth in the standings with just two race wins – with Scherzinger present for both.

However, off-track, their relationship had become strained, and the celebrity couple announced their first breakup in January 2010.

Within months, they’d reunited, and Scherzinger was back on the grid for Hamilton’s win in the Turkish Grand Prix – his first for 245 days.

“Every time she comes I seem to win,” he said afterwards.

“I think it was Monaco 2008 she came, then Hungary last year, which I won, and Singapore, so she is definitely a bit lucky for me.”

Hamilton’s McLaren mechanics have now confirmed the crew were more than familiar with Scherzinger’s impact on his F1 form.

“When he first came into this sport, we used to joke amongst the team that Lewis’s performance was so intrinsically linked to the state of their relationship,” former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley said on his Pitlane Life Lessons podcast.

“As in, on a good day, he performed well. When their relationship was in the doldrums, and they were so off and on, it was a bit like an emotional roller coaster – when he was in these low points in the relationship, you could clearly track the performance in the car to the way their relationship status seemed to be.

“We joked that there seemed to be more lap time in keeping those two together than there ever could be with anything we could do with the car!

“But there was a serious point to that, in that it was about understanding and appreciating that Lewis’s emotional state clearly affected his performance. This is not just linked to Lewis Hamilton; of course, we all face these challenges in life.

“Some of us find it slightly easier to manage and regulate emotions and others. Others of us don’t.

“It’s not a strength necessarily or a weakness, it’s just part of who we are and our individualism. Lewis has some unbelievable strengths that many of us can only dream of being able to achieve.

“But, emotion regulation is probably not one of the things that he finds easiest to do.

“Lewis is a guy who’s quite emotional.

“He wears his heart on his sleeve so, without the ability to really control those emotions to the level that some other people might be able to do or might find easier to do, we were faced with an unbelievably talented racing driver whose performance was, in some way, affected by how his emotional state was, which varied greatly at different times over a race weekend or a season.”

Hamilton and Scherzinger’s final showing on the F1 grid together came at the season finale, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2014.

The latter memorably planted a kiss on the 40-year-old’s race helmet as he celebrated becoming a multiple world champion and his first with Mercedes.

The pair jointly announced their definitive breakup in 2015, with Hamilton by and large keeping his private life low-key since then.

In 2019, Lewis hinted that their busy work schedules and the relentless F1 travel played a part in their demise.

“It’s similar to most sportsmen and women,” he said.

“It may be slightly different in that we are traveling as much as we are, and you are just away for crazy amounts of time.

“So that’s probably an additional weight that makes it really, really tough to hold down a good relationship, and if things aren’t quite perfect.”

Hamilton reaffirmed that stance earlier this month while discussing his aspirations to become a father for the first time.

Admitting that F1 has gotten in the way until now, he told La Gazzetta dello Sport: “I admire those who can do their job well and have a family at the same time.

“But if I had a son, I would always have my eyes on him, because I love children. I am an uncle, and I love spending time with my nephews, but looking after them when they are with me is stressful and requires commitment.

“But I have no regrets about it: I know where I am in my life, I am lucky and happy. In the time I have left in F1 I want to give my best and I will do it.

“Yes, I would love to [have children]. I love children and it’s definitely something I would like to do in my future.”