NEW YORK — The first Formula One race Lewis Hamilton won as a Ferrari driver was decided on a virtual safety car at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday afternoon — but in the United States the story landed on Instagram, where Kim Kardashian, her sister Khloe, and the next generation of cousins in matching Ferrari red turned the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix into the most-watched American celebrity moment of the day. Just Jared documented Kardashian’s celebration as Hamilton crossed the line for his 686-day-overdue first victory in red.
Hamilton crossed the line ahead of George Russell of Mercedes and Lando Norris of McLaren — the first all-British podium since Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, and John Surtees stood together at the 1968 United States Grand Prix. At 41, Hamilton became the oldest driver to win a Formula One race since Jack Brabham in 1970. Ferrari’s three-stop strategy paid off when a virtual safety car on lap 46 of 66 allowed Hamilton a near-free pit window, and he pulled away to win by 19.561 seconds. The Eastern Herald’s race-day coverage walked through how the result reopens the championship picture.
Kardashian, who confirmed her relationship with Hamilton at the Super Bowl in February and “hard-launched” the romance on Instagram with a red Ferrari ride through Tokyo this spring, spent the afternoon posting from a private celebration she had set up in advance for the moment Hamilton crossed the line. Her Instagram Stories included a photo of Hamilton being cheered by his Scuderia Ferrari HP team, captioned with a gold-trophy emoji and a red heart, as well as a throwback to her Monaco Grand Prix visit earlier this month, where she and Khloe were photographed in matching Ferrari-red ear protection. One image showed Kardashian kissing one of Hamilton’s race helmets, captioned “Monaco memories.”
The household reaction extended to the next generation. Khloe Kardashian shared a clip of Chicago West — Kim’s eight-year-old daughter — jumping up and down in front of the television as Hamilton crossed the line, joined by her cousin True. The two girls then posed for the camera, both winking in front of a screen that froze on Hamilton’s celebration lap. Khloe, 41, who had attended the Monaco Grand Prix with Kim earlier this month, captioned a post-race press-conference clip “Let’s goooooooooo” before sharing a photo of Hamilton standing atop the podium. Geo.tv compiled the celebration sequence across Kim and Khloe’s accounts.
Hamilton himself addressed his American girlfriend’s role from the post-race podium. “It’s amazing to have her come this weekend and have the support,” he said. “She does that for me every day.” The 686 days between Hamilton’s previous Formula One win — at the British Grand Prix in 2024, when he was still driving for Mercedes — and Sunday’s Spanish result represent the longest victory drought of his career, a stretch that had been shadowed by an ongoing public debate over whether his move to Maranello had been a mistake. Formula1.com’s race report walked through the strategy and the all-British podium.
For Kardashian, the day was the most public reframing yet of a relationship that until February sat outside the racing world’s view. She and Hamilton have known each other since 2014, when they first met through mutual fashion-industry connections, but their friendship turned romantic only this past spring. Their Tokyo Instagram reel — a montage of the two of them driving a Ferrari through the Shibuya streets to the sound of “Tokyo Drift” — became one of the most-shared celebrity posts of the year. The Sunday celebration, by contrast, was almost domestic in its tone: kids in cousin pairs in front of a TV, an aunt screaming “let’s goooooooooo,” a sister kissing a helmet for the camera.
The Barcelona victory also reset a Hamilton-Ferrari narrative that had been written largely in the negative. Italian motorsport press had spent months questioning the wisdom of the move — a 41-year-old seven-time champion paired with a team that had not won a drivers’ title since 2007. The pairing’s defenders had argued the result would come once the SF-26’s medium-corner advantage met a track that suited Ferrari’s three-stop strategy; Barcelona delivered both. Hamilton’s Italian on the podium — “a huge grazia to everyone here” — was a calculated gesture toward a tifosi that had begun to lose patience.
For the American audience watching, Kardashian’s celebration completed the storyline. The Knicks won the NBA Finals on Friday — a night that also resolved a 53-year championship drought — and 36 hours later Hamilton’s drought ended, too. Kardashian’s role in both stories was small but visible: she had been photographed courtside at multiple Knicks games this spring, and on Sunday her Stories were the most-shared American media coverage of a Formula One result that, but for her, would have been a story for the racing press. Pulse Sports Nigeria, in a piece that captured the public mood, ran the headline “She changed his life.”
