With an estimated net worth of £300m Lewis Hamilton is comfortably one of the richest people in Formula One but he hasn't just made money for himself.

Hamilton has also lined the pockets of an army of advisors and support staff, not forgetting Mercedes which has been perhaps the biggest beneficiary thanks to the six titles he has won for the team.

It hasn't been so easy for fans to cash in on Hamilton's success but that is starting to change.

Over the past few years we have heard an almost nauseating amount about how Drive To Survive has transformed F1's fortunes in the United States. There is good reason for this.

Even average American sports fans can't seem to get enough of F1. That's clear from the clamour on social media and the appearance of F1 drivers on the covers of the top American magazines and talk shows as well as the number of Hollywood movies about the sport which are in development.

The accelerating audience of F1 on ESPN in the US gives a good statistical indication of the sport's popularity there but even that is relative. ESPN recently announced that its average F1 race audience set a new record in 2022 when it surged 28% to 1.2 million. Sounds impressive. It is until you consider that this is around a third of F1's average race audience in Germany where the sport is on its knees having gone from a high of two races to none now despite the success of 'local' team Mercedes.

That doesn't mean to say that the interest in F1 from American fans is smoke and mirrors. Far from it in fact. It just means that you have to look a bit harder to find the best metric of it. This becomes crystal clear in one of the most unlikely places.

After Liberty bought F1 they embarked on an aggressive marketing strategy which saw them plastering the F1 brand on everything from an e-Sports competition and a music playlist to perfume.

As Liberty is an American company, an official range of F1 trading cards was inevitable and Liberty couldn't have picked a more traditional partner. It signed a deal with Topps, which was founded in 1938 and began producing Major League Baseball trading cards 13 years later. Topps was sold to sportswear giant Fanatics for $500m in January, just over a year after it began its F1 partnership. The timing was perfect.

Interest in trading cards surged during the pandemic as Americans began combing through their collections when they were stuck indoors. Online trading boomed and F1 was swept along with it. The pandemic fuelled F1's popularity in the US as Americans in lockdown began looking for new content on Netflix and came across Drive To Survive. Gunther Steiner's colourful language went viral and the rest is history.

For obvious reasons, sports fans were quickest to catch on to Drive To Survive and they were also the most likely trading card collectors. The smartest amongst them started snapping up F1 trading cards mindful of the massive gains to be had. In August a card of 1950s baseball player Mickey Mantle in his rookie year sold for a record $12.6m (£10.4m) and F1's new breed of fans wanted a piece of that action.

Collectors started searching for trading cards of drivers who could be future F1 stars. It is no surprise that cards from their rookie years are the most collectable. The stars aren't famous then so fewer cards are usually sold which makes them rarer. The cards also carry kudos as they show that their owners had the foresight to see the athlete's talent at an early stage.

The frenzy has seen cards for lower ranking drivers like Guanyu Zhou sell for more than $20,000 (£16.5k) whilst ones for names at the sharp end of the grid have gone for much more. The most historic and credible trading card platform is called Goldin and in 2021 its most expensive F1 trading card sold for $59,000 (£48.8k). Not bad but not a patch on the staggering $900,000 (£745k) that a Hamilton one-of-one Superfractor Topps card sold for in May this year.

The sale almost made one lucky Hamilton fan a millionaire and it set an all-time record for an F1 trading card. It was far from a one off as three months later a Max Verstappen card reached $534,000 (£442k) on Goldin. It doesn't stop there as the US platform has now become a magnet for some of the rarest F1 memorabilia with the latest addition being this pass to Hamilton's rookie F1 test.

The memorable event took place at Silverstone in September 2006 and was the most pivotal moment in Hamilton's career. If he hadn't performed well he might not have secured his McLaren drive and gone on to win his first title for the team two years later. Six more titles and countless records followed from the events on the day the pass was issued for. Hamilton did his first full laps in an F1 car and was watched by only a handful of people.

It's a far cry from nowadays when crowds swarm around him just because he steps out wearing a colourful shirt. In 2006 his test was watched by his father Anthony and brother Nick who was playing on the F1 simulator in the Silverstone hospitality suite. The pass was issued by McLaren via its sponsor Hilton and there were only around 10 other people in the group so it doesn't get much rarer than that.

There is no record of a pass to the test ever being offered for sale before and it says a lot about the local level of interest in F1 that it is appearing on an American platform.

According to the listing, it's in near mint condition, complete with the McLaren presentation pack (silver-coloured of course) and paperwork about the test. At a starting bid of $500 it will eat into a lot of Christmas money but will surely be on the wish lists of the most serious Hamilton fans and collectors who want to own a piece of F1 history.

It may be pricey but if the trend in F1 memorabilia values is anything to go by it could prove to be a smart investment. It seems to be only a matter of time before Hamilton calls time on his racing and that's when the value of his F1 mementos will really hit top gear.

Just think, if you can get your hands on enough mega-value trading cards or passes you might even be able to afford that $5m Las Vegas Grand Prix package.