Lewis Hamilton is the proud companion of F1’s most famous four-legged friend.

Lewis Hamilton’s popularity exceeds that of any other F1 driver, and as the seven-time world champion’s four-legged friend, Roscoe the bulldog has also gained a cult following. The rescue dog has over 1.3 million fans on Instagram and lives a lavish lifestyle.

Express Sport delves into the wild life of F1’s most famous dog.

Match made in heaven

Hamilton’s perfect relationship with Roscoe was a chance meeting. The former Mercedes and McLaren driver found him on a website for rescue dogs and picked him out from a crowd of thousands.

“I remember being online, looking online for rescues,” Hamilton explained. “There’s some page I found that had like 1,000 bulldogs, and I just went through all of them, and then I came across this one picture, and I was like, ‘That’s him’. And that was like one of the best decisions I ever took in my life.”

Vegan diet

Perhaps the most interesting fact about Roscoe pertains to his vegan diet. Hamilton went vegan in 2017 for environmental and ethical reasons, and his four-legged companion followed suit.

Roscoe now eats a plant-based diet after eight years of meat consumption. According to the Ferrari racer, this has had a significant impact on his health and even sparked an investment in Bramble Dog Food, which produces plant-based nourishment for canines.

“Roscoe is almost like a different dog to when I first got him,” he told PEOPLE last year. “I’m always looking for ways to look after his health and really just improve his quality of life, and his diet is just one part of that, but he has so much more energy and doesn’t struggle as much with the health issues he had before.”

Hamilton explained that Roscoe’s new diet has assisted him with breathing and walking, activities which he had always struggled with. There was another, unforeseen benefit, too. “Even his coat is softer, which is amazing because he loves to be petted,” he added.

Lavish lifestyle

As the companion of F1’s most decorated driver, Roscoe enjoys a number of luxuries, including quad-bike rides with his owner and visiting Grands Prix in the paddock. In a recent Vogue interview, Hamilton revealed that he has even taken his canine friend to the cinema.

“I don’t know if it’s strange, but I went to the movies with him a couple of times,” he said. “The first time I went was to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. It was just him and me. It was 3D, and he sat on the chair next to me, and I put 3D glasses on him, and he sat there watching it for five minutes, and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

“I couldn’t focus on the movie. He’s just sitting there, he’s watching. You could tell he is so confused. And then he passed out on the chair, and he was snoring the whole movie. And everyone in the theatre was laughing because you could hear him snoring loud.”