Lewis Hamilton's Emotional Arsenal Triumph and F1's Football Fever

On a grey Thursday in Montreal, with the Canadian Grand Prix looming and engineers buried in data, the Formula 1 paddock drifted somewhere else entirely. Not tyre compounds. Not strategy. Football.

At the centre of it all, Lewis Hamilton, now in Ferrari red but forever Arsenal at heart, confessed that Arsenal’s long-awaited Premier League title had reduced him to tears.

“I shed a tear, to be honest,” he said, the words landing with the weight of 22 years of waiting.

Arsenal were finally confirmed champions on Tuesday, their drought broken not on their own pitch but via Manchester City’s 1-1 draw with Bournemouth. A title sealed by a result elsewhere, yet no less seismic for it. For Hamilton, it pulled him straight back to Stevenage.

He spoke about being five years old, playing football around the corner from home, the only Black kid in the area. Everyone around him wore different colours – West Ham, Tottenham, Manchester United. His path was chosen with a nudge.

His sister, he recalled, gave him “a little dig in the arm” and told him he had to support Arsenal. He stuck with it. Decades later, one of the greatest drivers in history watched his club climb back to the summit and felt that same childhood tug. “We had a laugh about that the other day,” he added, the title a shared family victory as much as a sporting one.

Gasly flies the PSG flag

Not everyone in the paddock was swept up in Arsenal euphoria.

A few garages down, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly offered a sharp counterpoint, proudly aligning himself with Paris Saint-Germain ahead of next week’s Champions League clash with Arsenal.

“I’m glad we started talking about real stuff,” he joked, leaning fully into the rivalry.

PSG arrive in Europe’s showpiece on a domestic high. They wrapped up a fifth straight Ligue 1 crown last week, beating nearest challengers Lens 2-0 away to underline their dominance in France. For Gasly, that momentum feeds straight into his hopes for the continental stage.

He predicted a “fantastic game of football” and left no room for doubt. His loyalties are fixed. “I’ll obviously be rooting for PSG, and hopefully they can bring in a second Champions League,” he said, eyes already on the club’s next step in its European obsession.

Perez’s World Cup detour

Further along the pitlane, football meant something different again.

Cadillac’s Sergio Perez has his mind on a tournament, not a club. The Mexican is already plotting a mid-season dash back across the Atlantic to watch his country at the upcoming World Cup, with matches scheduled in his hometown, Guadalajara.

“I literally have to come just for the game and then go back to Europe. We will make it happen,” he said. No hesitation. No half-measures.

For Perez, this is non-negotiable. A World Cup on home soil is a once-in-a-lifetime collision of career and childhood dream. “It’s a World Cup at home. Anything can happen,” he added, cautiously optimistic about Mexico’s chances but clearly unwilling to miss a second of it.

The calendar is brutal. The travel will be worse. He is going anyway.

Antonelli caught between Brazil and Messi

At the sharp end of the championship, Kimi Antonelli finds himself in a different kind of dilemma: who to support when your own nation is missing.

The Mercedes driver, leading the standings on track, admitted he is still undecided on his World Cup allegiance with Italy absent from the tournament. His heart is split between the flair of Brazil and the enduring magic of Lionel Messi.

“I do really like Brazil, for example, the way they play the game,” he said. The attraction is obvious: rhythm, risk, and that easy swagger that has seduced neutrals for generations.

But then there is Messi. “I’m also cheering for Messi, one of my favourite players when I was little, and also I got to meet him in Miami,” Antonelli added. Childhood hero worship, crystallised by a real-life meeting, is hard to shake.

As for Italy, the pain still lingers. “Italy is not in it, unfortunately. So we’re going to wait another four years, maybe,” he said, calling the situation “a disaster” before quickly softening the blow. “But it’s okay.”

Engines, data – and the pull of the other beautiful game

On paper, this weekend is about the Canadian Grand Prix, about set-up windows and race pace and a title battle that will stretch deep into the year. In the garages, laptops glow and mechanics work through their checklists.

Yet in the quieter moments, when the cameras drift and the questions loosen, the sport’s biggest names turn instinctively to football – to childhood clubs, national pride, and the tournaments that once played out on bedroom TVs.

Hamilton’s tear for Arsenal, Gasly’s faith in PSG, Perez’s mad dash home, Antonelli’s search for a team in a World Cup without Italy: different stories, same pull.

The lights will go out in Montreal on Sunday. But away from the grid, another countdown has already begun.