An Italian job

 Maybe you missed it with everything else going on over the weekend, which is understandable. The attention span fills up fast when you've got people Labor Day-in' and college football college football-in' and the best golfer on the planet (Scottie Scheffler) winning the PGA Tour championship, and an American (Frances Tiafoe) reaching the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

Oh, yeah. And throw in Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic both losing early in the same tournament ... and Chase Briscoe winning one of the oldest prizes in NASCAR (the Southern 500 at Darlington) ... and Alex Palou all but wrapping up his third IndyCar title in four years despite having a car that wouldn't start at the start up in Milwaukee.

All of that happened over the weekend.

Meanwhile, half a world away, so did this: A Frenchman born in Monaco became the king of Italy.

His name is Charles Leclerc and he's been Ferrari's No. 1 driver in Formula One for awhile now, and yesterday, for the second time in five years, he did something for which they erect statuary in Italy: He won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, out-strategizing the faster McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, who finished second and third.

Ferrari winning the Italian Grand Prix. 

If you're an Italian, you know what that means. And if you're not, you couldn't possibly.

Ferrari winning at Monza, that's Christmas morning in Italy. It's New Year's Eve and Mardi Gras and the Fourth of July and every blowout wedding at which you over-indulged. 

Leclerc did it this time by employing a one-pitstop strategy that jumped him in front of Piastri and Norris, who were on a two-stop schedule. The Ferrari camp was gambling Leclerc's tires would last long enough to keep him in front, and the wager paid off; although his 11-second lead shrunk to 2.6 seconds across the last seven laps, 2.6 seconds and seven laps were enough to light the national party lamp.

"Mamma mia!" Leclerc exclaimed on his radio as he took the checkers.

Ferrari wins in Italy, and the Frenchman gets his lines right. Now that's a day.