Hamilton dedicates honorary Brazilian citizenship to memory of Senna

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton was officially declared an honorary citizen of Brazil in a ceremony at the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix this weekend.

In brief

Hamilton honoured with Brazilian citizenship, dedicates to memory of Senna

Lewis Hamilton was officially declared an honorary citizen of Brazil in a ceremony at the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix this weekend.

The seven-time world champion was awarded the honour after the Chamber passed a motion in June to make him an honorary citizen. Hamilton has won the Brazilian Grand Prix three times, including last year in 2021, where he waved a Brazilian flag on the cool-down lap.

Accepting his citizenship in the Chamber, Hamilton dedicated his honour to his idol, Ayrton Senna.

“It is honestly the greatest honour for me to be here, receiving and accepting this citizenship,” Hamilton told the Chamber. “I really do feel like I’m one of you now, finally. I love Brazil. I’ve always loved Brazil.

“I want to dedicate today this honour to Ayrton Senna. To Ayrton’s family, to his friends and to his fans. When I was five years old, I saw Ayrton race for the first time and that was the moment I knew I wanted to be a world champion just like him.”

Sainz expects no repeat of poor performance at altitude in Brazil

Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jnr says he expects that his team’s disappointing performance at high altitude in the last round in Mexico won’t be repeated this weekend in Brazil.

Sainz and team mate Charles Leclerc finished fifth and sixth, respectively in Mexico and were half a minute behind Mercedes driver George Russell before he pitted for soft tyres on the penultimate lap to attempt to set the fastest lap before the end of the race. Despite the Interlagos circuit also being significantly above sea level, Sainz says he does not expect a repeat of the poor performance this weekend.

“I don’t think so,” Sainz said. “I think Austria was also high altitude and we were okay. Brazil is similar to Austria, so I expect to be okay.”

Bertrand named Mahindra Formula E CEO

Former Formula E director Frederic Bertrand has been named as the new CEO of the Mahindra Formula E team.

The team, who had been led by team principal Dilbagh Gill from the first season of the championship in 2014 to the end of the 2022 season, appointed Betrand as CEO following a decade working in the FIA.

The Indian team placed eighth in the Formula E teams’ championship this season, failing to win a race. Formula E is set to run its inaugural race in India next year around a street circuit set in the city of Hyderabad.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

Formula 1 may be investing huge amounts of time, effort and money into promoting next year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, but PeterG cannot get excited by what they’ve seen so far…

$500m on something that I just don’t see having a long term future is a ridiculous waste of money considering how it could do with being invested elsewhere to actually improve the sport for fans.

This whole Las Vegas GP is just a Liberty vanity project. It looks like a dreadful track that offers nothing of any interest. Ticket prices are beyond what your average F1 can could ever hope to afford. Its TV timeslot is utterly ridiculous regardless of what timezone you’re in & the entire thing is nothing more than American razzmatazz that has zero to do with the sport or the racing.

But long straights that will all no doubt be very long DRS zones to give them a lot of highway passing so they can try and claim that 100 passes in the stat book mean it was the greatest race in the history of any category that has ever existed.

And even taking DRS out of the discussion, These boringly long straights are just even more boring now that every new track has to have a few of them. It was an interesting novelty when the circuit in Shanghai came out with such a long straight but it’s a feature that has long lost its novelty now that it’s something every new track has.
PeterG

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Soundscape and Laura Brewer!

On this day in motorsport

  • 30 years ago today Gerhard Berger won the Australian Grand Prix after Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna collided

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

38 comments on “Hamilton dedicates honorary Brazilian citizenship to memory of Senna”

  1. Well, I expect the good citizens of Brazil will have to rethink once they read the opposing cogent arguments in the comment section of this site.
    I SAY:
    Jolly well deserved Sir Lewis! Enjoy!

    I wonder what anthem will be played should he win the Brazilian GP?

    1. Tommy Scragend
      8th November 2022, 5:29

      The anthem of the country which issued his racing licence, so God Save The King.

      1. Wouldn’t it be awkward if they accidentally played “God save the Queen” instead?

        1. @eurobrun

          Only if it’s the Sex Pistols version…

        2. Er, it’s the same tune! 😂

          1. That’s the joke! 🥁

  2. I think the Vegas GP will end up feeling similar to Miami.

    A shallow hype filled spectacle aimed at the social media influencers and celebrities but not a lot of fun for those of us who are actually fans of Formula 1.

    With such long straights to put a few long DRS zones I’ve little doubt there will be a lot of passing but that doesn’t necisarily make good racing.

    For example the stat book shows there was 55 on track passes during the Miami GP (Most created by DRS) and that didn’t do anything to help the racing as it was one of the least interesting and most forgettable races of the season.

    Such shows that the focus should be on quality rather than just quantity. The mistake with these newer super long straight Multiple DRS zone circuits is that those creating them and those running the show seem to look only at quantity wrongly assuming that quantity alone means super excitement.

    1. Also i pretty much agree with the Ben Hunt article.

    2. @roger-ayles let’s face it, even if fan feedback says it’s not interesting, liberty will say that the fans loved it and that it was the most exciting race ever.

  3. It’s hard to take the Daily Mail seriously but did Horner really make Max the guest of honor at his wife’s 50th birthday celebration? And not his wife? Who turned 50? And was the reason for the party?

    1. I wouldn’t put it past him

    2. Yes… how many races did Horner’s wife win for him this year vs Max?

    3. How can Geri a guest(of honor) on her own party?

      1. Why would Geri throw herself a party? Christian should have thrown it for her. So she would be a guest at a party Christian threw in her honor. I don’t throw my own birthday parties. I am the guest of honor at my birthday parties.

    4. Wow, Leroy, you offer a telenovela level of silliness insight into Formula 1. So now we’re talking about wives?? Hahaha…. please stop.

      1. The point of my comment, amian, was that Horner seems obsessed with Max lately. Even at the expense of his own wife. His appearances on Drive to Survive show he thinks about Max while riding horses with his wife and playing with his daughter. He will lash out disproportionately to any criticism levied at Max. If that anecdote from the story is true, and given the source it may not be, it is just another example of what seems to be a pretty obsessive relationship.

        1. Whisper it but I’ve heard that Horner makes Geri wear a Verstappen mask in bed…

    5. I didn’t see Geri putting in on pole this season (maybe on Christian’s pole) or having to be stared at by Marko’s glass eye.

  4. What is an ‘honorary citizen’? Does he get all the same rights as a citizen of Brasil? Can he vote, be called up for the World Cup? (Their first game is four days after the end of the F1 season so Lewis will have to get changed quick).

    I know Bono is only an honorary ‘Sir’ because he’s not a UK citizen. But being knighted is an ‘honour’ anyway, so Bono has an ‘honorary honour’? I don’t know why people want these things, but if it makes them happy I guess.

    *I’m talking about that Bono not the one with normal glasses who gets called ‘man’ a lot and explains tyre decisions on radios for a living.

    1. @bernasaurus Different countries have different policies.

      In the USA (and, I think, the UK) it’s literally just the certificate – the significance is that the country is impressed with you, not in any reward that may appear aside from that.

      In Ireland and France, honourary citizenship is legal citizenship – someone awarded an honourary citizenship is just as entitled to live, vote and work there as anyone who’s had that citizenship their entire life (with the usual proviso that you can’t have the right to vote in two places at once). As well as any duties that may result from such a citizenship, of course.

      Israeli honourary citizenship bestows a pension, free health and social care within Israel – and nothing else. So no obligations towards military service but also none of the other rights (including voting) that full citizenship grants.

      Brazil appears to be a bit different – while all citizenships are technically considered equal (apart from a couple of extremely specific exemptions), it’s only possible to exercise the rights and be under the restrictions of one nationality at a time (again, apart from the extremely specific exemptions). So, the fact Lewis has not renounced his British citizenship means he won’t get to do Brazillian voting or conscription, but if he ever had his British citizenship revoked (or renounced it himself), then depending on a couple of technicalities, the Brazillian rights/responsibilities could activate.

      1. What a wonderfully detailed response, thank you @alianora-la-canta

      2. Well done.

  5. There is some incredible irony in The Sun wondering how the world got so toxic.

    1. + 1,000

    2. You’d think the critiquing the behaviour of football fans might be something they’d avoid these days.

  6. Amusing that Hamilton wants to be like Senna, but is so much more like Prost.

    1. @Moi Not true IMO.

    2. Not sure he would like to be like him, it is just his idol. As a driver there arent much similarities.

    3. Please leave Alain Prost alone, he never dissed you

    4. Why be civil when you can be an a…hole?
      BRazil really sucks right now because it’s full of toxic people like this.
      They repeat the same weak narratives over and over and refuse to even entertain the thought that there might be different sides or angles to each story. This is the sad result of combining weak minded people, poor education both at home and in school and social network algorythms. These throlls who call themselves “Max fans” behave a lot like what we call “bolsominions” in Brazil. It’s quite a depressing sight.

      1. Baby Trump of Brazil. He’d burn the entire rain forest down if he could.

  7. 30 years since the most fascinating crash in the history of Formula 1, in my opinion. We all know that Ayrton Senna was no stranger to dirty tactics, and was perhaps the driver that introduced the ‘brake-test’ to Formula 1. However, during this time, his main rivals, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, were also willing to dish it out, and for this reason the late 1980s and early 1990s were the very height of dirty tactics in Formula 1. In my opinion, Nigel Mansell deliberately brake-tested Ayrton Senna in Adelaide to get back at him after Senna had pulled the trick on him in the past, and to show Senna that he couldn’t walk all over him. Senna saw that Mansell had brake-tested him and decided to take them both out of the race. He was better off sacrificing the points on that day to make sure nobody would ever brake test him again, because he was Ayrton Senna. It was a real power-play move, and I believe it was yet another example of when Senna’s ruthlessness went over the line.

    1. One of many… Senna was a brilliant drive. One of the very best. But he was a bully inside the track and a diva outside. Lewis has far surpassed his idol both as a driver and as a man.

      1. Lewis is a diva, but a fair and clean driver. If you’re going to criticize, be fair. Literally two posts above you criticized those who are not willing to listen to both sides of the story.

  8. Ferrari should indeed be okay, given Interlagos’ altitude is similar to Red Bull Ring’s.

    Hopefully, RBR & Sky can solve their issue. The fact, though, is that only Ted said anything negative about them. Therefore, merely a single individual rather than the entire TV station.

    I’m perfectly okay with every new track getting at least one long straight, if not more.

  9. It is great to see this welcome for Hamilton in Brazil. Particularly after 2008, where Massa — a home native and favorite — lost by 1 point in the last lap to Hamilton. It’s great to see such recognition. Some hope that sports can unite people more than politics.

  10. Though not a fan, it’s been awkward to see Hamilton booed so often (notably Mexico, which has a big problem with racism and I say this as someone married to a half-Mexican, half-black and I hate woke) because he seems to be genuinely hurt. So, this is a nice change of pace.

Comments are closed.