Argentina’s yearning for its next sporting hero

Franco Colapinto‘s confident performances haven’t just surprised the Formula 1 paddock, but the Williams rookie has also awakened a nation’s yearning for its next sporting hero.

Few countries are as sporting crazed as Argentina. Just remember the scenes in the capital Buenos Aires after its national icon Lionel Messi finally captained the country to winning the football World Cup, with an estimated five million Argentinians flocking to the streets in its delirious aftermath.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are the three days of mourning declared after Messi’s predecessor Diego Maradona died in 2020, which led to similar mass gatherings as fans travelled from all over the South American country during the pandemic to pay their respects.

Argentinians haven’t had it easy lately. Following years of economic decline, Argentina’s inflation rate soared to 250% over the summer, with an estimated 52.9% of its 46 million population living in poverty. That downturn led to right-wing libertarian Javier Milei being elected as president last year, armed with radical deregulation policies to fix its economy and turn the ailing nation around, under the watchful eye of the International Monetary Fund that has lent Argentina up to $44 billion.

Argentina is a patriotic nation at the best of times, but amid its economic malaise, its citizens are yearning even more to find new reasons to be proud of their country. That practice even has its own word; exitismo, which is described as “excessive eagerness for success or excessive valuation of its achievement by third parties”.

When Messi lifted the long-coveted World Cup in Doha in 2022, that eagerness for success was rewarded spectacularly. What better way to lift a country’s morale than sporting success on the world’s biggest stage? But the mercurial 37-year-old is now in the twilight of his career, and while Argentina fiercely celebrates its hockey and rugby teams too, it is always on the lookout for that next sporting hero to inspire it in difficult times.

It goes without saying that there’s a chasm between guiding your country to the World Cup and finishing eighth in a Williams, but 21-year-old Colapinto is now surfing on a similar wave of homeland support that also backed the likes of NBA star Manu Ginobili, tennis player Gabriela Sabatini or field hockey legend Luciana Aymar.

The country has a rich history with F1, with a…