For all the stick Lewis Hamilton gets on the internet, he’s not short of a fan or two as these stats from Facebook show.
But Hamilton would lose his status as most popular F1 driver on Facebook immeditaely if Valentino Rossi’s much-rumoured switch to Ferrari came true…
| Driver | Facebook fans | Percentage |
| Lewis Hamilton | 326,022 | 59.54 |
| Fernando Alonso | 68,628 | 12.53 |
| Felipe Massa | 57,787 | 10.55 |
| Kimi Raikkonen | 38,549 | 7.04 |
| Robert Kubica | 12,768 | 2.33 |
| Sebastian Vettel | 12,718 | 2.32 |
| Jenson Button | 6,304 | 1.15 |
| Timo Glock | 3,927 | 0.72 |
| Mark Webber | 3,471 | 0.63 |
| David Coulthard | 3,309 | 0.60 |
| Heikki Kovalainen | 2,489 | 0.45 |
| Nico Rosberg | 2,466 | 0.45 |
| Sebastien Bourdais | 2,359 | 0.43 |
| Jarno Trulli | 2,243 | 0.41 |
| Nelson Piquet Jnr | 1,207 | 0.22 |
| Nick Heidfeld | 954 | 0.17 |
| Rubens Barrichello | 753 | 0.14 |
| Giancarlo Fisichella | 663 | 0.12 |
| Adrian Sutil | 457 | 0.08 |
| Takuma Sato | 284 | 0.05 |
| Kazuki Nakajima | 179 | 0.03 |
| Anthony Davidson | 0 | 0.00 |
Lewis Hamilton has more fans on Facebook than all the other drivers who participated in 2008 put together. In fact, none of the other drivers have more fans than Ayrton Senna (158,669) or Michael Schumacher (171,033).
But another motor racing star makes Hamilton’s total seem paltry by comparison: Valentino Rossi, who is heading for the one million mark with 923,552 fans.
A quick way for Hamilton to make up the ground to Rossi would be to successfully land an airliner on the Hudson river. That propelled Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger 536,579 fans in a matter of days.
Poor Anthony Davidson doesn’t seem to have a fan page. And I assume Facebook isn’t very popular in Japan, as Takuma Sato and Kazuki Nakajima have fewer fans than F1 Fanatic does.
To put the whole list into perspective, the Facebook user with the most fans is Barack Obama, with 4,721,908 supporters. None of the F1 drivers are more popular than cult ’80s kids TV show Thundercats.
This post is just intended as a bit of fun – not a serious study of which F1 drier has the most fans! I’ve no idea how big Facebook is in Fernando Alonso or Kimi Raikkonen’s home countries, which could explain why they haven’t got as many votes as their fellow world champion.
When we did a poll of the most popular drivers among F1 Fanatic readers Robert Kubica won by miles thanks to a massive influx of voters from Poland.
Are you a fan of any F1 drivers or teams on Facebook? Which ones?
Join F1 Fanatic on Facebook here: F1 Fanatic Facebook Group. We only need 28 more recruits to beat Adrian Sutil!
Too Good
29th January 2009, 13:13
Hmmm… Thanks for letting know there are fan communities for these guys on face book.
Alain Prost,JPM,Sato,Jacques Villeneuve here I come :)
Loki
29th January 2009, 13:36
Ouch for Davidson.
Although I just looked up Anthony Davidson, and I couldn’t find his “page” (where you subscribe to be a fan) – there’s only a Supporters Group, and that does have 47 members. OK, so he’s still last, but it sounds so much better than a big fat nought!
I’m amazed that Anthony Davidson has a ‘hate’ group too – only 5 members, but wow…
ajokay
29th January 2009, 13:47
To be fair, you’d have to be one helluva driver to be more popular than Thundercats.
If McLaren signed Lion-o… man… I’d hate to think.
Loki
29th January 2009, 13:57
That would be cheating, he has the eye of Thundera!
Spiffy
29th January 2009, 14:14
Any particular reason Alonso’s pie chart colour is red? ;) You know something we don’t, don’t you?
THIS JUST IN: ALONSO IS GOING TO FERRARI I know ‘cos it said so in a roundabout way in a Facebook-related pie chart.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
29th January 2009, 14:18
Actually I’ve just realised that what I thought was the Timo Glock fan page is actually a hate page, so I’ll have to change the numbers above. I’m not sure there is a fan page for Glock. Depressing to see so many people falling for that conspiracy theory claptrap.
S Hughes
29th January 2009, 14:45
How awful that people take the trouble to set up hate pages (the Glock one is probably established by Alonso/Ferrari fans). I can’t stand Alonso, but I wouldn’t take the time out of my day to post comments on a hate site. The unofficial Lewis fan site continually has to delete offensive comments from “haters”. What sort of people are these?
Lewis Hamilton Fanpage
29th January 2009, 16:28
@ S Hughes – yeah, it sure is tedious sometimes. I prefer to have clean & positive language in the comments. Unfortunately the forum had to be closed for this very reason.
@ Keith, dude, you’ve got a super site – keep it going!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
29th January 2009, 22:36
Thanks :-)
Shahriar
29th January 2009, 17:01
Yeaaaai…. i made the Kubica Fan page :D:D:D:D
only 2.33% though :(
but neways me feeling so guud :D
rtur
29th January 2009, 17:11
I checked on polish website nasza-klasa.pl (similar to Facebook but a lot more popular in my country) and Kubica’s most popular fansite there has 188k supporters.
Kris
29th January 2009, 17:13
Poor anthony! If I could stomach facebook I’d have gone and found him so that he could have at least one fan.
Rob
29th January 2009, 17:13
You could use Google’s keyword tool to see how popular google searches are for each driver.. y’know if you’re that way inclined :D
S Hughes
29th January 2009, 17:25
Rob, how do you do that please?
Flip & Fill
29th January 2009, 18:32
I’m not surprised about Rossi being so far ahead, he’s one of the most charismatic sportsmen in the world.
Add in his talent and the fact he puts a lot of time into his official fan club and it’s easy to see why so many people like him.
The guy puts a lot of time into meeting his fans, I met him at a race a few years back and he spent at least 2 hours talking to a large group of fans and he made a special effort to take pictures with every kid who was there.
This wasn’t a pre-arranged thing, he was just walking around with a couple of his engineers and they stopped to talk.
Hamilton is one of those drivers who has managed to connect with the general public, most drivers don’t really do this outside of their own country but Lewis is massive all over the world.
An American cousin of mine told me that his friends at school were asking him about Lewis when he came into the sport and these were kids that had never even mentioned F1 before.
S Hughes
29th January 2009, 18:43
Flip & Fill, how heartwarming to hear that about Lewis, but he charms everyone who meets him and his popularity goes beyond F1. Which is why it is so grating to hear the ill informed criticism of his character from some quarters.
K.R
29th January 2009, 19:31
I m going to create a new Group called F1 pitbabes :P and I’ll put a sexy pic for the Group and you’ll see the magic:P
Thanks Keith nice statistic :)
batman567
29th January 2009, 20:53
completely agree with “Flip & Fill” – rossi gets in amongst his fans, and he really appreciates them…
in complete contrast to the stuffy, staid, personality-less clones in F1 – who only just tolerate their fans, and only because it says so in their contracts
Rob
29th January 2009, 21:00
S Hughes – https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
S Hughes
30th January 2009, 12:22
Thanks very much Rob.
Chaz
29th January 2009, 21:06
Yes I have a profile but I really don’t get the whole facebook hype…
staggington
29th January 2009, 22:12
i honestly do not know who anthony davidson is lol. did he race for super aguri?
in other news…. its a nice relief to come to this site and not have to worry about reading ignorant comments and hate on drivers. yahoo is ridiculous and ridden with ignorant and racist ppl. and most of you seem well educated on the sport! keep up the good work folks!
The Limit
30th January 2009, 1:13
Poor old Timo Glock.
JohnBt
30th January 2009, 2:33
Gotta be careful here. The media on Lewis has been overblown, so there are a lot of new young F1 fans who are not the hardcore fans, means it is more just surface ‘pop idol culture’. I met many ordinary people who knows who Lewis is, but totally unaware of the other F1 drivers and teams. So it’s not accurate. Noticed, Alonso,Massa and Kimi percentage are not that far apart. Rossi has been around for a long time and he earned it.
S Hughes
30th January 2009, 12:35
Rubbish – overblown? More like justified, except the unfair media criticism.
So if you are a new young F1 who has been brought to the sport by the appeal of Lewis Hamilton, your fandom and interest is irrelevant? What is not “accurate” about being a Lewis Hamilton fan – you either are or you aren’t. My interest in F1 was increased by LH and I have learnt a great deal about it and the other teams and drivers and a bit of history. Surely that can only be a good thing! Lewis HAS “earned” his popularity! He’s been around since he was 10 you know in other motoring categories. That’s a long time in my book!!
sumedh
30th January 2009, 8:04
Coming soon : “How to create a popular facebook fan page for yourself” by Sumedh
Chapter 1: How to win a world championship
Chapter 2: How to land a plan on Hudson river
Chapter 3: How to win US elections
:P :D :P :D :P :D
DC
30th January 2009, 8:12
I laughed out loud at Keith’s post about Glock. Too bad – I actually like him.
In IndyCars, it looks like Danica Patrick has about 6,700 fans.
wurz
31st January 2009, 19:49
Nigel Mansell has over 2750 fans on facebook! He is a legend!!!
Cynth
1st February 2009, 1:43
i personally think i should be allowed to dislike hamilton as much as i like, we share the same surname and it causes me no end of shameful jokes. i think you’re right, his character has extended beyond f1, positively and negatively.
as a gimmick he serves very well. however, the way he keeps ‘improving’ only time will tell how he turns out as an actual driver.
I’m torn between nice guys like Button who just can’t get a break, and sly champions such as Schumacher, I guess the days of genuine all round technically astute drivers and nice guy champions such as Senna, are well and truly over.
S Hughes
2nd February 2009, 13:40
Lewis has added another 5,892 friends to Facebook since this post. But of course, according to some, this is despite him being a “gimmick”, not being a “nice guy” and the fans not being “accurate”!
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