Lewis Hamilton's Tearful Reaction to Arsenal's Premier League Title
Lewis Hamilton arrived in Montreal this week ready to talk lap times and tyre choices. Instead, before a wheel had turned at the Canadian Grand Prix, the conversation veered towards the one result that had already shaken his week: Arsenal finally lifting the Premier League title.
The Ferrari driver, a lifelong Gooner, did not try to play it cool.
“I shed a tear, to be honest,” he said, the emotion still close to the surface.
For Hamilton, Arsenal’s first league crown in 22 years did more than end a drought. It dragged him back to Stevenage, to a five-year-old kid kicking a ball around the corner, the only Black child in the area, surrounded by fans of West Ham, Tottenham and Manchester United. In that crowd, his allegiance was decided at home.
His sister, he recalled, literally nudged him into it. “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 added. Decades on, with a cabinet full of world titles of his own, Hamilton still sounds like any other supporter who has ridden the long, anxious wait for a league trophy.
The title was confirmed on Tuesday, not with an Arsenal kick, but with Manchester City’s 1-1 draw against Bournemouth. When the final whistle went, it sent the red half of north London into celebration and rippled all the way to the Formula 1 paddock.
Rival loyalties in the paddock
Hamilton was not alone in bringing club colours into the Montreal media room. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly wasted no time in staking out enemy territory.
“I’m glad we started talking about real stuff,” he joked, before proudly nailing his colours to the mast as a Paris St Germain supporter, just days before PSG’s looming Champions League clash with Arsenal.
PSG arrive at that tie as freshly crowned French champions once again, having wrapped up a fifth straight Ligue 1 title with a 2-0 win away to Lens last week. Gasly expects a spectacle and made it clear there will be no split loyalties.
He called it a “fantastic game of football” in the making and made his intentions plain: he will be firmly behind PSG, hoping they finally add a second Champions League to match their domestic dominance.
Perez plots a World Cup dash
Further down the pitlane, the football talk shifted from clubs to countries. For Cadillac’s Sergio Perez, the calendar is already being bent around one event: the World Cup on home soil.
The Mexican is determined to be there in person when his national team plays in his native Guadalajara, even if it means a mid-season dash across the Atlantic.
“I literally have to come just for the game and then go back to Europe. We will make it happen,” Perez said, outlining a whirlwind round trip that would test even an F1 travel schedule.
For him, the chance is too precious to pass up. “It’s a World Cup at home. Anything can happen,” he added, hopeful but realistic about Mexico’s prospects in front of their own fans.
Antonelli caught between Brazil and Messi
At the sharp end of the championship, Kimi Antonelli faces a different kind of dilemma. With Italy missing from the World Cup, the series leader admitted he is still searching for a team to back.
The Mercedes driver confessed to a soft spot for Brazil, drawn in by the style and swagger that has defined the Seleção for generations. “I do really like Brazil, for example, the way they play the game,” he said.
Yet his admiration for Lionel Messi pulls him in another direction. Antonelli grew up watching the Argentine and recently met him in Miami, a moment that clearly left a mark. “I’m also cheering for Messi, one of my favourite players when I was little, and also I got to meet him in Miami,” he said.
Italy’s absence still stings. “Italy is not in it, unfortunately. So we’re going to wait another four years, maybe,” he admitted. “It’s a disaster, but it’s okay.”
From Arsenal’s long-awaited coronation to PSG’s relentless title run, from Perez’s planned World Cup dash to Antonelli’s divided heart, the Montreal paddock sounded less like a grid of drivers and more like a global fan zone. The engines will take over soon enough, but for a day, football owned the room.
