Why Senna's fans adopted Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton's open acknowledgement of his debt to Ayrton Senna has earned the respect and admiration of Brazilian fans - and even Senna's family, says JONATHAN NOBLE
The biggest cheers were always going to be reserved for Felipe Massa, but there were times over the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend when it was hard to believe that Lewis Hamilton was not a home-town hero too.
The cheers he got from fans whenever he was on track, the banners in the grandstands urging him on, and the warmth he was afforded by everyone, were on a level where you could be forgiven for thinking he had grown up in the favelas of Sao Paulo rather than an housing estate in Stevenage.
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Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.
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