Valencia, 24 June

The football World Cup is making the headlines on the first day of the European Grand Prix weekend, as it is hard to ignore the fallout from the biggest sporting event on the world stage, especially in an Italian team like Ferrari. Today, Italy were playing Slovakia in a match that would decide who goes through to the final knock out stages and as one can imagine, defeat for the “Azzurri” and their consequent elimination from the World Cup was a hard knock to take. Both Ferrari hospitality areas were packed with journalists, guests and team personnel and as referee Webb blew the final whistle, you could feel the disappointment and there was little consolation in the fact that our French “cousins”, Italy’s adversaries four years ago in that magical night in Berlin, had already suffered a similar fate. With the Azzurri’s flag now packed away, it will be down to the Reds to uphold Italy’s sporting honour this weekend, for all Italian fans, for the Scuderia and to represent the nation.