Motorsport: Motor racing-I’m waiting for my Brazilian passport, jokes Hamilton

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Formula One’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton mentioned on Wednesday he wished to spend extra time in Brazil and indicated his approval of a bid to make him an honorary citizen.

The Briton, knighted by his personal nation, was in Sao Paulo to ship a keynote speech at an occasion targeted on enterprise and digital transformation.

Previous keynote audio system on the VTEX Day occasion embody former U.S. president Barack Obama, British entrepreneur Richard Branson and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

“I wish to spend extra time right here in Brazil…It is such a fantastic tradition. I’ve solely been to Rio and Sao Paulo, however I wish to come again for Christmas, New Year or one thing,” Hamilton mentioned.

“(Brazilian soccer worldwide) Neymar invitations me yearly, and (professional surfer) Gabriel (Medina) invitations me yearly, however I by no means had the prospect…I’m waiting for my Brazilian passport.”

A invoice to make the 37-year-old an honorary citizen is pending within the decrease home of the Brazilian parliament however has but to be voted on.

The transfer was proposed by congressman Andre Figueiredo after final 12 months’s Brazilian GP, at which Hamilton unfurled the Brazilian flag after successful at Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit.

The crowd chanted his title together with that of late triple world champion Ayrton Senna, a nationwide hero and Sao Paulo native who died at Imola in 1994.

The Briton, essentially the most profitable driver within the historical past of the game who has at all times held up Senna as his boyhood idol, later carried the flag onto the rostrum to an ovation from the followers.

Presidential hopeful Ciro Gomes, a member of Figueiredo’s PDT social gathering, backed the honorary citizenship for the Mercedes driver.

“Hamilton, you already stay in our hearts. With the honorary citizenship, you’ll be even nearer to us,” he mentioned on Twitter after Hamilton posted an image of himself with the Brazilian flag above a headline concerning the initiative.

“I’d be honoured,” mentioned the Briton on Twitter.

(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo, writing by Alan Baldwin in London, enhancing by Ed Osmond)



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