Swiftie show or drinking binge? F1 stars on their break

Usually found jetting off to swanky locations, driving the world’s fastest cars and lapping up adulation from adoring fans, what do Formula One drivers do when they have time off?

Quite the variety, it seems. From taking in a Taylor Swift show to drinking with student pals or, more seriously, touring a refugee camp in Africa, F1 drivers have been revealing their holiday secrets ahead of Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix.

Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda might have raised a few eyebrows in the paddock when asked what he got up to in the more than three weeks since the last Grand Prix in Belgium.

The 24-year-old said he went back to meet up with friends at home in Japan and then travelled to Italy “to get back into shape… especially after drinking a lot in Japan.”

“That’s very, very fun,” he said to chuckles from the media.

“I missed the time that you want to spend with friends from about 18 years old until 22. It’s the best time you can spend around summer. So I finally got to do, you know, err, summer things with my friends.”

‘Still digesting’

Fifteen years Tsunoda’s senior and a veteran of the grid, Lewis Hamilton had a much more sobering time off on an “amazing” trip to Africa.

“I maximised my time straight from the airport into activities, history, museums, cultural experiences in each of the different countries I went to,” he told reporters.

“There’s so much to take from it, I’m still digesting the trip if I’m being honest,” he added.

Hamilton posted pictures of himself at the Maratane Refugee Settlement in northern Mozambique.

He said the experience of meeting children who walked 10 kilometres to and from school every day without anything to eat had profoundly affected him.

“If you don’t see it and experience it or speak to someone who’s been seriously affected by it, you couldn’t even imagine. So yeah, we need more education for sure,” Hamilton said.

The F1 star was part of a trip with United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and he said he was thinking about how he could help them with his career in the twilight years.

“They’re doing amazing work and it’s like okay, what can I do to get on board, how can I help and so that’s what I’m trying to do now,” said the seven-time world champion.

For now, he is putting his weight behind a project to bring Formula One to Africa, with a possible race in South Africa or Rwanda.

“We can’t be adding races in other locations and continue to ignore Africa, which the rest of the world just takes from. No one gives anything to Africa,” he said.

“Why are we not on that continent?”

‘Swiftie!’

Hamilton’s teammate at Mercedes, George Russell, came in for some good-natured banter after posting a picture of himself at Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour.

Swapping his racing helmet for a bright pink cowboy hat, Russell posted a video of the US pop megastar belting out “Cruel Summer” with the caption “Swiftie!”

“Not too late to delete this, George,” quipped one fan on his Instagram account, and the driver suffered some gentle teasing at the press conference ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix.

But Russell was quick to move from “Getaway Car” to the real deal at the Formula One.

“We’re lucky in this sport that we’ve got this mandated break otherwise I think people struggle to switch off,” he told reporters.

“I didn’t think too much about racing and then Sunday night last week I was struggling to sleep thinking about tyre pressures and rear springs and downforce level and stuff so it’s funny how the brain shifts.”