We talked about the fact that the Gazzetta dello Sport festival now takes place in the Italian city of Trento and quoted Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 world champion, one of the special guests of this event. Of course, he is not the only representative of the motorsport world participating in the Festival dello Sport: Yuki Tsunoda, the Japanese driver of AlphaTauri, is one of the guests. Moreover, he lives in Faenza, in the city where the Italian team is based.
“It’s great to see everyone who came to the festival, even though I don’t drive for Ferrari! However, now things are not going well for the Scuderia,” said Yuki from the podium as the audience, including many young people, gave him a warm welcome.
By the way, Stefano Domenicali, president of Formula 1, introduced him to the audience and said: “Yuki is an incredible guy, because thanks to his energy, the Japanese public fell in love with Formula 1 even more.”
“It’s very nice that so many young people have come together here, honestly I didn’t expect this,” Tsunoda continued. – Growing up my idols were Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. Until I was sixteen I did karting, but when my father first took me to Suzuka to watch the Japanese Grand Prix race, it seemed to me that it was terribly noisy there – so much so that I asked my father to leave the circuit because I simply couldn’t stand it any longer.
But then my attitude towards Formula 1 changed. Unbelievable, but true: at one point I was among the fans, but after a while I became a Formula 1 driver. Everything happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to realize it.
It was easy to adapt to life in Italy because I absolutely love your cuisine, especially pasta and pizza. I also lived in England, but the food there cannot be compared to Italian food. I also like to go to restaurants, I like to see people relaxing and I don’t mind drinking a glass of prosecco myself!
And in England I led a completely different lifestyle: I constantly sat at home and played on the PlayStation. I like it more in Italy, because here I no longer torture myself with computer games. I also realized that this would allow me to show better results on the track.”
An amusing dialogue then took place between him and the festival host, which is worth quoting in full.
– Who is the fastest driver in Formula 1?
-I!
– Yuki, but seriously?
– Verstappen.
– And the smartest?
– Alonso or Sainz. Maybe Fernando!
– The cutest?
– Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
– Who would you most like to spend your holiday with?
– With Alex Albon, Lando and Max. In real life Verstappen is not what he seems, he is a great guy. Thanks to him I discovered such a wonderful drink as gin and tonic! This was aboard his personal plane, and I will be grateful to him for this for the rest of my life!
Naturally, the audience greeted Yuki’s words with laughter and genuine applause.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
