F1 – The “home” I want to talk to you about is not the place where we feel safe, where our loved ones are found. No, the house I want to talk about is that of the 1981 horror film. The cult of the genre "The House" by director Sam Raimi (the very young will know him above all for the film trilogy of the Marvel superhero Spider-Man from the early 2000s), progenitor of the trilogy which includes the sequel/remake "The House 2" which ends with "The Army of Darkness".
In sports, "home" is the place where a team or athlete resides, in any discipline. As nice as it is to win and triumph at "home", in front of your audience, it will never equal the satisfaction of imposing yourself at the "home" of others.
Silverstone 2018: “At their home”
While in Italy, in that hot summer, the problem of illegal immigration was being discussed, the leader of the League Matteo Salvini launched the slogan "at their home" referring to the immigrants who landed on the Italian coasts. Formula 1, in those days, was experiencing a heated duel between Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes.
Arriving at Silverstone, Vettel leads the general classification by just 1 point above the home hero. In the race Lewis starts from pole with the German immediately behind. The Englishman got off to a bad start and was touched by the other Ferrari driver, Kimi Räikkönen, forcing him to the rear.
Vettel proves to be in perfect shape and leads a masterful race. Hamilton, after a furious comeback, was satisfied with 2nd position. The German, caught up in the enthusiasm for his rival's victory on clay, borrows Salvini's slogan "at their home", knowing full well that the Mercedes headquarters are about 17 km from the Silverstone track, in Brackley.
At the next Grand Prix, the German one, in Hockenheim, about 45 km from Heppenheim, birthplace of the 4-time Red Bull champion, that slogan uttered in England will backfire on him.
On Saturday, in qualifying, specifically in Q2, Lewis Hamilton hits the curb heavily, his W09 is damaged in the hydraulic part and will have to say goodbye to the rest of qualifying. The image in which the British man, having got out of the cockpit, pushes his broken-down car is iconic. He will start in 14th position. Vettel instead grabs pole.
Sunday seems to be the first watershed of the world championship with the duelists at title one in pole the other in 14th position. But in Hockenheim the weather, as we know, is often changeable.
While Hamilton made up position after position, the rain disrupted the race. On lap 52, in turn 12, Vettel blocked his Ferrari at the only point on the German track that left no escape. The car hits the barriers and gets buried: Seb has to say goodbye to his dreams of glory. Not only for the home Grand Prix, but also for the world championship. From then on, Hamilton's Mercedes will be uncatchable and the Englishman will win his fifth world title.
Hamilton, with the German out of action, wins the race starting from 14th position. At Vettel's house. From then on, Mercedes will be impregnable and the Englishman will win his fifth world title, surpassing the results of the German from Ferrari.
Monaco 2024: “At your home Charles”
After years and years of disappointments in the various Grands Prix held in Monte Carlo, home of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, in 2024 everyone expected that the curse, comparable to that of another Ferrari driver, the Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, for the Brazilian Grand Prix, broke and he could finally win his Grand Prix. So it was.
The Monegasque dominates qualifying and the race. All in all, a GP lacking in excitement in which the top 10 maintained their initial positions. In the last lap the Sky commentator, Carlo Vanzini, launches into a series of classic stereotypes, shouting beyond the decibel limit allowed for this kind of victory.
The name of every corner of the Monte Carlo track and the inevitable "home", as if the public did not know that Leclerc was Monegasque. Everything seems anathema, read by the protagonist Ash Williams of the film mentioned above, when he finds the cursed book, the "Necronomicon", which gives rise to all the horror that you can see in the film.
Two weeks later, for the Canadian Grand Prix, the Sky editorial team that covers Formula 1 takes up the words of its main commentator "at your home", using the image of Leclerc alongside that of Gilles Villeneuve, the Canadian driver and Ferrari legend.
The Montreal GP held yesterday turns out to be the worst Grand Prix since the Frenchman Frédéric Vasseur has been in charge. The Ferraris were both eliminated in Q2, with Leclerc 11th and Sainz close behind in 12th.
The Sunday of the race is the completion of the disaster with both SF-24s not getting a spider out of the hole. Leclerc with some engine trouble, takes a gamble by putting the slick, but the track is wet from the rain that fell on Montreal and the hard tires show all their unsuitability for the track conditions. He also suffered the humiliation of being lapped by the top 6 finishers and gave up shortly after, retiring.
Sainz, in an anonymous race, will retire after a contact with Alexander Albon's Williams (probably his next team, in 2025) in the final laps. The two Ferraris have not retired in the same race since the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
As soon as we talk about "home", bad luck comes all at once. Italian commentary should be more sedate, less stereotyped and with lower volume. You can win at "home", without resorting to particular narrative sentimentality because the race within the "friendly walls" is just an event that brings points towards a bigger dream: that of becoming world champion.
For the rest it would be convenient, given the results, to no longer mention the word "home". As Eduardo said, being superstitious is ignorant, but not being superstitious is bad luck.
Crediti foto: Scuderia Ferrari