News Summary
- Lewis Hamilton fans have adapted Lula’s re-election graphics for Interlagos, putting the Ferrari driver in a Panama hat and using his racing number, 44, as a mock ballot number.
- The flyers name Felipe Massa as Hamilton’s running mate. In Brazil’s actual election, Massa backed Flávio Bolsonaro and donated R$80,000 to his campaign.
- Hamilton, an honorary Brazilian citizen since 2022, is due to make his 400th F1 start at the circuit where he beat Massa to the 2008 championship by one point.
The flyers stacked inside a cardboard box look like campaign material left over from Brazil’s presidential election. The word “Presidente” sits beside a star, a Panama hat shades the candidate’s face and a number fills the right-hand side of the design. Then comes the Ferrari race suit. The candidate is “Lewis Inácio Lula da Silva”, the number is 44, and a yellow strip below his name reads “Vice Felipe Massa.”
Lewis Hamilton’s supporters have printed the flyers and round stickers to hand out at Interlagos during the São Paulo Grand Prix. They kept the visual cues from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign and played on the resemblance between Lewis and Luiz.
The number works in both settings. Hamilton races with 44, while Brazilian voters enter a candidate’s number on an electronic voting machine to bring up the name and portrait before confirming their choice. Lula’s number was 13.
The Panama hat would have been familiar to anyone who followed the election. Lula had worn the style for months after doctors advised him to protect his scalp following surgery in April. It became part of his public image during the campaign and appeared in his official electronic-ballot portrait in both rounds. On the fans’ version, the brim sits above the Ferrari badges.
The running mate who backed Lula’s opponent
Massa’s name gives the parody a second reading. In the real election, the former Ferrari driver publicly backed Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula’s opponent, and donated R$80,000 to the senator’s campaign. The campaign recorded the contribution on October 21, four days before the runoff.
“I’m here to support this change. I think change is important for everyone,” Massa said in Portuguese during a livestream with Bolsonaro campaign economic coordinator Daniella Marques.
Bolsonaro led the October 4 first round with 47.03% of valid votes to Lula’s 45.16%. Lula overturned that result on October 25, winning a fourth presidential term with a record 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79%. Bolsonaro received 59,826,041 votes, or 48.21%.
Bolsonaro refused to concede. The next day, he said publicly that he would stay in Brazil and comply with an order to surrender his passports. Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had also barred him from leaving the country. Bolsonaro left on October 27, two days after the runoff, and arrived in Miami on October 28, travelling via Argentina and Ecuador.
The senator is under investigation in multiple inquiries, including one into suspected money laundering involving lawyer Willer Tomaz and another concerning funds sought from banker Daniel Vorcaro for a film about Bolsonaro’s father. He denies wrongdoing.
His father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a sentence of 27 years and three months under house arrest following convictions that included attempting a coup.
The point that still connects Hamilton and Massa
At Interlagos, the pairing takes on a meaning that predates the election. In 2008, Massa was the driver in Ferrari red. He started from pole and won the Brazilian Grand Prix, leaving Hamilton, then at McLaren, needing fifth place to become champion. A late shower left Toyota’s Timo Glock trying to reach the finish on dry tyres. Hamilton passed him on the final lap, took fifth and won the championship by one point.
He returns on Sunday to make his 400th F1 start at the circuit where he won that first title.
Massa’s legal action over the 2008 season concerns the handling of the Singapore Grand Prix, where Nelson Piquet Jr crashed deliberately. Massa argues that the result should have been annulled and that he would then have won the title. He brought a damages claim in London’s High Court, which dismissed several claims and allowed an unlawful-means conspiracy claim to proceed. The UK Supreme Court currently lists the defendants’ appeals on that remaining claim for February 2–3, 2027.
Hamilton’s place on the flyer also draws on a later scene at the circuit. After winning at Interlagos in 2021, he carried the Brazilian flag on his victory lap, recalling Ayrton Senna’s gesture after his 1991 home win. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies cited that moment when it granted Hamilton honorary citizenship in 2022. At the ceremony in Brasília, Hamilton recalled seeing Senna race for the first time at the age of five. “That was the moment I knew I wanted to be world champion,” he said, as reported by the Chamber.
When the São Paulo Grand Prix opens at Interlagos on Friday, Hamilton’s 44 will be on the Ferrari. On the stickers fans have prepared for the same weekend, it will sit next to a name borrowed from Brazil’s president and above the name of the Ferrari driver he beat to his first title.
From Brazil’s election to the Mexico City podium celebrations
Lula’s re-election carried another campaign symbol beyond Brazil. Left-wing politicians abroad took up the “L” hand gesture, made with the thumb and index finger, as a sign of solidarity and a response to the rise of the far right. In Madrid, former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau called on supporters to raise Lula’s ‘L’. In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum made the gesture at a press conference after the election.
A week after the runoff, another sound from Lula’s campaign reached Formula 1. As fans streamed onto the track at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for the post-race celebrations, the chant “Olê, olê, olê, olá, Lula, Lula” could be heard in the background. Max Verstappen had won the Mexico City Grand Prix, Hamilton had finished second and Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s third place had secured his first F1 world title. Verstappen’s partner, Kelly Piquet, is the daughter of three-time F1 champion Nelson Piquet, who donated to Jair Bolsonaro’s 2022 re-election campaign.
GRANDE PRÊMIO is covering every session of the São Paulo Grand Prix live from Interlagos. Follow our on-site coverage in Formula 1.
