Wall of security closes around Hamilton

(GMM) Unprecedented levels of security have tightened around championship challenger Lewis Hamilton as the 2008 season winds up in Brazil this weekend.

Following a McLaren official's admission that the 23-year-old Briton is "vaguely aware" of the latest wave of racist hostility against him, it emerges that an exclusion zone has been set up in the area around Hamilton's hotel in the wealthy Morumbi district in Sao Paulo.

Fans and reporters are therefore unable to get anywhere near the McLaren driver away from the Interlagos circuit.

Hotel staff have been barred from giving out information about Hamilton, and when a reporter for the local Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper was interviewing his teammate Heikki Kovalainen, a security guard intervened.