Lewis Hamilton's Emotional Connection to Arsenal's Title Win
Lewis Hamilton arrived in Montreal to talk about apexes and tyre temps. He ended up talking about Arsenal – and choking up over a childhood promise made on a street corner in Stevenage.
Days after Arsenal finally ended a 22-year wait for the Premier League crown, confirmation arriving when Manchester City were held 1-1 by Bournemouth on Tuesday, the Ferrari driver revealed just how much the title meant to him.
“I shed a tear, to be honest,” Hamilton said, the words landing with the weight of two decades of near-misses and false dawns in north London.
He went straight back to being five years old.
Back to the kid with a ball at his feet, playing around the corner in Stevenage. Back to the only Black child in a neighbourhood where everyone seemed to wear the colours of West Ham, Tottenham or Manchester United.
In that setting, his footballing fate was sealed not by form tables or star players, but by a nudge in the arm.
His sister, he recalled, made him pick a side.
“She gave me a little dig in the arm and said, ‘You have to support Arsenal.’ We had a laugh about that the other day,” he said, smiling at the memory of a family joke that has suddenly become a championship story.
All these years later, that offhand sibling order has survived the Wenger years, the rebuilds, the near-misses. It has survived his own journey from kart tracks to world championships. It survived long enough to meet a title parade.
Gasly in PSG colours
Hamilton wasn’t the only driver steering the conversation away from lap times.
Down the media line, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly lit up at the mere mention of football. The Frenchman, never shy about his Parisian allegiance, wasted no time in planting his flag.
“I’m glad we started talking about real stuff,” he quipped, the grin giving away how much he enjoyed the detour.
Gasly is a proud Paris St Germain supporter, and with a Champions League clash against Arsenal looming next week, he made his loyalties painfully clear for any Gooners in the room.
PSG, fresh from sealing a fifth successive Ligue 1 title with a 2-0 win away at nearest challenger Lens last week, are chasing something far more elusive: a second Champions League crown.
“I’ll obviously be rooting for PSG, and hopefully they can bring in a second Champions League,” he said, leaving not even a sliver of doubt about where his heart will be when the two clubs meet.
Perez plots a World Cup dash
Further down the pitlane, the talk turned from club colours to national pride.
Cadillac’s Sergio Perez has his eyes on a different stage entirely. For the Mexican, the World Cup is not just another tournament on television; it is coming to his doorstep.
With matches scheduled in his native Guadalajara, Perez is already planning a mid-season dash from Europe, even if it means a brutal turnaround between continents.
“I literally have to come just for the game and then go back to Europe. We will make it happen,” he said, as if arranging a quick trip across town rather than an intercontinental sprint.
The lure is obvious. A World Cup at home is a once-in-a-lifetime shot.
“It’s a World Cup at home. Anything can happen,” he added, allowing himself a touch of optimism about Mexico’s chances without drifting into bold predictions.
Antonelli between Brazil and Messi
At the sharp end of the championship, Kimi Antonelli faces a different kind of dilemma.
With Italy absent from the tournament, the Mercedes driver finds himself in the unusual position of choosing a team rather than being born into one. His solution is a split allegiance that mirrors the way modern fans often follow players as much as nations.
“I do really like Brazil, for example, the way they play the game,” he said, drawn to the flair and rhythm that have defined the Seleção for generations.
But another name tugs at him just as strongly.
He is also cheering for Lionel Messi, a player he adored as a child and later met in Miami – a brief encounter that clearly left its mark.
“Messi, one of my favourite players when I was little, and also I got to meet him in Miami,” Antonelli said, the admiration obvious.
Italy’s absence still stings.
“Italy is not in it, unfortunately. So we’re going to wait another four years, maybe,” he added. “It’s a disaster, but it’s okay.”
Disaster or not, the mood in Montreal made one thing clear: for a paddock built on precision, data and engineering, football still cuts through everything. A title in north London, a superclub in Paris, a World Cup in Guadalajara, and a kid from Italy torn between Brazil and Messi — all of it found a place on a Thursday before the Canadian Grand Prix.
Engines will dominate the weekend. For one afternoon, though, the soundtrack was very clearly the world’s other game.
