Not only ability, but willingness to improve that wasn't really seen at others. His prowess in racing in the rain is a side effect of him losing due to rain ear

Not only ability, but willingness to improve that wasn't really seen at others. His prowess in racing in the rain is a side effect of him losing due to rain early in his career and then just completely obsessing over it to the point whenever it would rain he would stop whatever he was doing, pick up his kart and drive until he couldn't anymore. This revisionism where he wasn't a "myth" back then is pure bullshit, people were revering him on and off the tracks. He was very adept at marketing and selling his image and this was visible into how he usually got what he wanted even if the top brass on F1 didn't, as he did have the star power to do it. He was also reckless out of races, Brazilian journalists and the main PT-BR narrator for F1 races have multiple stories of him driving insanely fast in Europe with them to the point they though they'd die in an accident with him.