As Lewis Hamilton was interviewed after his dramatic win in the 2021 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix, he couldn’t help but smile as he gestured to the moderator that he couldn’t hear him.
Hamilton had qualified on pole, but lost it after a new engine was put in his Mercedes. Starting plum last in the Saturday Sprint, Hamilton drove to fifth by the time that race ended.
Starting the main race the next day in 10th, Hamilton would end up overcoming and overtaking the nine drivers ahead of him, including championship rival Max Verstappen.
But the source for Hamilton’s distraction during the customary interview was the crowd. I couldn’t quite make out what the crowd was chanting, but what I heard both now and then seems clear enough:
“Ole, ole ole ole! Senna, Senna!”
It wouldn’t be the first time at Interlagos.
Was Ayrton Senna the greatest? No; the man himself would likely say Juan Manuel Fangio was. But in death, Senna has gone into being in a different tier.
Senna once said this about Fangio: “Every year there is a winner of the championship, but not necessarily a world champion. I think Fangio is the example of a true world champion.” It’s fair to classify Senna in his time as a true world champion, but in death he’s ascended beyond just that into a mythical being.
Throughout his career, Senna waged a fierce war with rival Alain Prost. There is a clear argument that Prost has to being the best driver in the history of F1, as he won four championships and came just a combined 12.5 points from winning eight.
And yet, Prost is almost treated as an afterthought. A great champion, sure, but he was the machine for Senna to beat. Senna was the last of the romantics, in a sport that would eventually give way to the coldness of classicists such as his late-career rival Michael Schumacher. Today’s F1 driver is a highly tuned, highly capable individual whose lone true goal in life is to be world champion.
Prost was the first of these. He spent every moment on and off track with the thought of how to become world champion in the back of his mind. Senna, on the other hand,…
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