Brazilian soccer legend posts one-word message to describe Lewis Hamilton driving legendary F1 icon Ayrton Senna’s McLaren in Sao Paulo

To pay tribute to the Brazilian Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton drove the former's 1990 title-winning McLaren MP4/5B race car around the rain-soaked Autodrome Jose Carlos Pace circuit. Reacting to Hamilton's special drive in Sao Paulo, Brazilian soccer icon Neymar Jr. praised the British driver on social media.

In his decade-long career, Senna won three world championship titles (1988, 1990, and 1991) while driving for McLaren. He became the then-youngest driver to win three titles. After two dull seasons with the British team, Senna joined the title rival Williams F1 in 1994. However, he lost his life in a tragic accident during the San Marino Grand Prix in May that season.

Despite his F1 career being shorter than some of his contemporaries like Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and the then-upcoming star Michael Schumacher, Senna made a big impact on racers across several generations. Hamilton, who openly claims the Brazilian icon as one of his inspirations to be a race car driver, got an oppurtunity to drive Senna's title-winning McLaren at Interlagos.

Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr. praised Hamilton and Senna on Instagram. He shared pictures of the two racing icons on his IG page. Here's a look at the post, captioned:

"LEGENDS 👑"

Neymar Jr. also tagged Hamilton as a collaborator on the post. The 39-year-old Mercedes-AMG driver replied "🇧🇷❤️🙏🏾" on the post.

For reference, Hamilton has a special connection with Brazil. The Brit won his first championship title in Sao Paulo in 2008 and even became an honorary citizen of the Latin American country in 2022. He has won the Brazilian Grand Prix three times (2016, 2018, and 2021) in his career so far.

As for the special drive during the recently-concluded Brazilian GP, Hamiton called it 'The Greatest Honour' of his career.

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"Looking forward to Christmas" - Lewis Hamilton on finishing behind his teammate as the 2024 season reaches final stage

Mercedes-AMG star Lewis Hamilton had a disastrous race weekend at Sao Paulo. The seven-time F1 champion finished the race in P10, six places behind his teammate and compatriot George Russell (P4).

During a mandatory post-race media interaction, Hamilton express his displeasure with the recently-upgraded W15 race car. The Brit also highlighted that he is not focused on finishing ahead of Russell in the Drivers' table this season.

"I just put my focus on something else. I’m not fighting for the championship, it doesn’t really matter where we finish in the championship. I don’t care if I finish ahead of George (Russell) or behind George, it doesn’t make that big of a difference to me," Hamilton said.

"I just want to keep the car out of the wall and try to score points if I can for the team. If I can finish well and they give me a car that doesn’t bounce off the track in the next few races, then hopefully we get a better result. Looking forward to Christmas," he added.

With Ferrari improving vastly since the mid-season break, Hamilton is seemingly looking forward for better results in the 2025 season with the Italian outfit.