Lewis Hamilton announced his intention to go vegan in September - and now he is Formula One world champion again.

His diet and track success are not necessarily connected, but veganism has been a lifestyle choice for a growing number of athletes keen to bolster their health.

It raises the question of whether there will be fresh obstacles for the four-time world champion to overcome.

Lewis Hamilton has won the championship title yet again following his victory in Mexico

Nigel Mitchell is a performance nutritionist at the English Institute of Sport, a team behind many of Great Britain's most successful sports, who has worked in Formula One with McLaren.

He mentioned one aspect of Hamilton's preparations that might benefit from a vegan diet.

'One of the things that probably is a benefit is that it's much easier to keep your weight down if you're following a plant-based diet,' he said.

'I've worked in Formula One and a lot of the drivers are really trying to minimise their weight so they're faster in the car.

The Briton, who announced he was going vegan in September, raced home to glory

'You're cutting out so many calories from your dairy, from your eggs, from your meat, although obviously it depends on how much you were eating before.'

Formula One also demands intense concentration, but not everybody agrees about whether Hamilton would see a change in that department.

'In terms of sports performance there may be improvements in cognitive function as a result of consuming more antioxidants from foods such as berries, and omega-3 from foods such as walnuts and chia seeds,' said Debbie Smith, a lecturer in applied sport and exercise nutrition at Leeds Beckett University.

But Mitchell takes a different view, and said: 'Some people talk about an increase in antioxidants, but the evidence for that is really quite low.

Hamilton, along with a growing number of athletes keen to bolster health, have turned vegan

'You can get all of that from a mixed diet, so I wouldn't see that there's any massive nutritional gains from it. Anybody eating a diet that is containing meat can still get all of the vegetables.'

David Rogerson, a sports nutritionist at Sheffield Hallam University, says it is difficult to predict how Hamilton will fare on a vegan diet.

'It's tough to say, because very little research has been done on veganism in a sport context,' he said. 'So we're speculating about a lot of things that we don't really know about.

'I'd be very interested as a casual observer to see how he gets on.'