There is the old champion who leaps out of his shiny single-seater with the agility of a boy, with his heart doing a somersault, as in Goal by Umberto Saba, giving movement to the tail of curls that emerges from the yellow helmet. The first to run towards him is Kimi Antonelli, yes, boy, at 19 years old currently leader of the drivers’ standings immediately ahead of the seven-time world champion Ferrari driver (in 2008 on McLaren and six times between 2014 and 2020 on Mercedes) who joined Ferrari in 2025 and until Spain 2026 fasting in red. She hugs him.
A nice spontaneous gesture on the part of someone who had to fight off disappointment having seen second place stolen from him, after overtaking teammate George Russell, from the car that suddenly pointed like a mule. One can see in the gesture all the esteem of the young man who was two years old when Lewis Hamilton won his first World Championship on McLaren in 2008, the child and the legend embracing each other, with roles almost reversed, if it is true that today he is the child at the top of the drivers’ standings and the champion is now second to him, thanks to the victory on 14 June in Spain.
The child cannot know that right there, as his biographer Frank Warral told us, Lewis Hamilton, the first black in F1, experienced one of his difficult moments in the year of his first World Championship victory: «When he found Alonso fans in Spain in 2008 with their faces painted black and “Hamilton’s family” written on their shirts. He said he was “sad” for not having heard the voice of the sports world raise against that episode. But, convinced that sport was in his destiny, he never let himself be discouraged.”
Not even the last year, difficult to the point of almost convincing him that Ferrari needed another driver, brought Lewis Hamilton to surrender, as demonstrated by the 2026 Spanish GP with the fastest laps, 19 years after his debut in Formula 1, a lesson for the boy who has his whole life and dreams ahead of him. They say it is predestined, and it is always difficult to be so. And Hamilton is the first to know, having been there. Twenty years apart, the two live parallel lives: the first signed by McLaren at 12, the second entered the Mercedes Junior program at 13.
That embrace smacks of a castle of crossed destinies, of handovers between generations, perhaps without haste and with a long way to go. And if from now on the two really engage in a duel at the top it will be the most interesting thing the Italian fans can get, knowing that they will be able to divide their hearts between the Red and the young Italian, without having to break it. And who knows how many at the end of Spain, happy to see the old champion pass under the checkered flag, waved by Novak Djokovic, will have felt a little sorry for the young Kimi betrayed at the last moment by his four wheels.
