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Languages 🗪

The lingua franca in F1 is English. A Spanish driver talks to an Italian team in English. Everyone can speak it, so there's no need to context switch from one language to another.

Only sometimes do other languages creep in. At the end of a race, before the top three drivers go to the podium, there's a "cool down" room where they get water to drink, towels for the sweat, and sponsor caps to put on. There's a camera and a microphone in there, and sometimes they say something interesting. When Nico Rosberg was the main challenger to Lewis Hamilton, Rosberg could speak several languages and knew that Hamilton couldn't, so whoever the third driver was in the cool down room, he'd pick any other language they could both speak and use that. It was a telling micro-aggression: "the race is over, but I can still beat you at this one thing!"

When someone gets to drive for Ferrari, they become an honorary Italian, so they usually learn some of the language. When Sebastian Vettel (German) drove for them, he knew that if he won a race, the Italian team members and fans would warm to him if he could celebrate in Italian. The problem was that he only knew enough of the language that I could easily understand him, and I don't speak Italian at all. This year, Charles Leclerc (Monegasque) won in Italy for Ferrari, which is a pretty big deal in Italy. He celebrated on the radio in Italian fluently and passionately, and I have no idea what he said.

#F1

#Leclerc

#Monza

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