Hobbies & Passions

Like several of his contemporaries, Albon is a genuine gaming enthusiast rather than someone who plays for appearances. He has participated in virtual racing events and maintains an interest in gaming culture. It is one of the ways he connects with a younger audience both in Thailand and globally, and his online presence reflects genuine engagement rather than managed marketing.

Lindblad has spoken about retaining a relatively normal teenage life outside racing despite the intensity of junior motorsport commitments. Growing up in Essex rather than a traditional European racing hub, he maintained the football interests and friendships of someone whose early life was not exclusively shaped by motorsport ambition. As his career has intensified, the Racing Bulls environment has become his world, but the background is grounded in the ordinary rather than the purpose-built.

Senna trained as a pilot and regularly flew himself between destinations in Brazil in small aircraft. He found flying peaceful in a way that motor racing — despite its technical similarities — did not offer. He piloted a helicopter to the circuit on occasion and was by all accounts a competent and serious aviator.

Senna played tennis regularly as part of his fitness routine and genuinely enjoyed the sport. He was competitive enough to hold his own against good club players, and friends from the paddock recalled him using tennis as a way to decompress during race weekends.

Sainz skis regularly and with genuine ability. He has been photographed on Spanish and Alpine ski slopes and describes skiing as one of the activities he looks forward to most in the off-season. Given his competitive nature, 'casual' skiing is probably not quite the right description — he approaches it with the same focus he brings to everything athletic.

Sainz has spoken about the importance of maintaining friendships from before his F1 career, friends who knew him before the fame and money. He makes deliberate effort to spend time with this group in the off-season and has cited this as important to his mental health and sense of identity. Several of his friends have appeared in his social media content.

Leclerc is among the most prominent gamer-racers in the current F1 grid. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, he competed in the Virtual Grand Prix series on F1 2020 and performed impressively. He streams gaming sessions, plays football games, and has competed in charity gaming events. His online presence is more spontaneous and unfiltered than many of his rivals.

Hill is a committed motorcyclist who has undertaken long-distance adventure rides through remote territories. He has ridden through Africa and other challenging environments, approaching motorcycle travel as genuine exploration rather than organised tourism. He writes and speaks about these trips with evident passion.

Hill has spoken publicly about periods of depression and mental health struggles during his career, particularly during years when he was driving uncompetitive cars and unable to see a path forward. He has used his public profile to advocate for better mental health awareness in sport, and his openness on the subject has been widely praised.

Golf is one of Ricciardo's consistent recreational activities. He plays wherever his schedule allows and has been photographed on courses around the world. He approaches it competitively — he has spoken about the frustrations of the sport in terms that make clear he genuinely wants to be good at it, not just to be seen playing.

Ricciardo's enthusiasm for music spans multiple genres and he has attended festivals including Glastonbury and various US events. His social media reflects genuine engagement with music culture rather than scheduled promotional content. He has met musicians and artists in his LA life and maintains friendships in the entertainment world.

Coulthard has remained physically connected to racing since retiring from Formula 1, driving in historic events, demonstration runs, and various non-championship appearances. He drove a Red Bull car as part of various promotional events, participated in classic car races, and has spoken about the specific pleasures of driving machinery from different eras — the physical demands, the noise, the absence of electronic assistance.

Fittipaldi's IndyCar career, which began after his Formula 1 years, produced two Indianapolis 500 victories — in 1989 at forty-two years old and in 1993 at forty-six. The 1989 win also came with the IndyCar championship. Competing seriously against drivers less than half his age at one of the world's most physically demanding circuits, his results were not the product of experience managing decline; they were genuine competitive performances.

Golf has become one of Ocon's primary leisure activities. He plays at courses near Monaco and wherever race calendars take him. He approaches it with competitive seriousness rather than as a casual diversion, which is consistent with his general personality — Ocon is driven and structured in most things he does.

Ocon has mentioned cooking as something he does genuinely for pleasure rather than necessity, with a particular interest in French cooking. Living away from France has reinforced rather than diminished his connection to French food culture, and he cooks at home in Monaco when his schedule allows.

In 2017, Alonso skipped the Monaco Grand Prix to compete in the Indianapolis 500, declaring that he wanted to chase motorsport's Triple Crown (Monaco, Indy, Le Mans). He qualified on the front row and led laps before retiring with engine failure. He returned in 2019 but failed to qualify. The decision to skip Monaco for Indy was audacious and generated enormous press coverage.

Alonso won Le Mans in 2018 and 2019 driving for Toyota, completing two legs of the Triple Crown. He threw himself into the preparation with characteristic intensity, doing endurance runs and working closely with Toyota's LMP1 technical team. His Le Mans victories are among the most celebrated moments of his non-F1 career.

Cycling is one of Alonso's primary off-season activities. He's been photographed cycling in the mountains near his Swiss home and in his native Asturias, and follows professional cycling closely. He has raced in amateur cycling events and uses cycling as active recovery around his triathlon and gym training.

Before karting became his primary focus, Colapinto trained seriously in tennis — a sport with a strong Argentine tradition. The combination of hand-eye coordination, mental composure under pressure, and individual accountability that defines tennis transfers well to motorsport, and Colapinto has cited the sporting mentality he developed in tennis as relevant to how he approaches competition. He still plays recreationally.

Like virtually every Brazilian sportsman of his generation, Bortoleto grew up with football as the dominant sporting culture. He follows Brazilian football, supports a São Paulo club, and maintains the cultural connections to home that are important to him given the volume of time he spends in Europe. Football is both recreation and identity — a way of staying connected to Brazil while living in Monaco.

Russell's approach to self-improvement through data analysis goes beyond the norm even in a data-driven sport. Team engineers have spoken about his ability to recall specific corner data from laps completed days earlier and his habit of requesting detailed telemetry breakdowns during debriefs. He has said that he is never satisfied with his own performance, regardless of the result.

Golf is one of Russell's regular leisure activities, and he has been seen on courses near various race circuits. He describes it as valuable for mental decompression — a sport where the performance variables are entirely different from racing and where the pressure, though present, is of a completely different kind.

Before breaking into car racing, Villeneuve was a successful snowmobile racer in Quebec — a form of motorsport taken very seriously in Canada. He won events at national level and developed his competitive instincts in conditions — icy, unpredictable, physically brutal — that bore little resemblance to the circuits he would later conquer. The experience built the car control that would later astonish F1 engineers.

Villeneuve earned his helicopter licence and used a private helicopter for travel during his F1 career. He was, by all accounts, the same type of pilot as he was a driver — committed and somewhat terrifying to passengers. Stories of his helicopter approaches to circuits are part of the Villeneuve mythology, told by people who flew with him and emerged grateful.

Hadjar is a football enthusiast in the way that most young French men are — it is the dominant sporting culture of his background. He follows French football and maintains an interest in the sport as recreation and as a cultural touchstone connecting him to his Parisian upbringing. Several of his racing contemporaries share the football interest, and it is a common topic in the paddock between younger drivers.

Brabham's mechanical skills predated his driving career. He rebuilt engines in his teens, funded his early racing by doing mechanical work on other people's cars, and brought an engineer's understanding of what a car required to his development work that was unusual among drivers. His ability to communicate with his engineers in their own technical language was noted by everyone who worked with him as a competitive advantage.

Doohan surfs and has spoken about maintaining connections to Australian culture and outdoor activities despite spending most of his time in Europe. Monaco's Mediterranean location offers reasonable access to beaches, and surfing provides both a fitness outlet and a cultural connection to Queensland that the European racing circuit cannot replicate. It is one of the ways he maintains an identity distinct from the Monaco paddock lifestyle.

Hunt retired from racing in 1979 and joined the BBC's F1 commentary team, partnering Murray Walker. The combination of Walker's breathless enthusiasm and Hunt's languid, informed, irreverent observations became one of British broadcasting's great partnerships. He was unfailingly honest, occasionally outrageous, and always compelling. His death in 1993 left a gap that Murray Walker described as impossible to fill.

Hunt played squash to a high standard and used it as a primary fitness activity during his racing career. The sport suited his competitive nature and the intensity of a squash match provided the kind of physical outlet that complemented rather than conflicted with his racing preparation. He was reportedly very difficult to beat.

During his early F1 years, Button was known for his modelling work as well as his racing. He appeared in commercial campaigns and was featured in magazines in a way that was unusual for racing drivers of the era. He has reflected on this period with some amusement, noting that the attention was flattering at the time but that he always wanted to be taken seriously as a driver first.

Before his racing career, Fangio worked as a mechanic in Argentina and built a deep understanding of how cars functioned from the ground up. This mechanical knowledge informed his driving career — he was known for his ability to feel what a car was telling him and adjust his driving accordingly. He drove his first race in 1936 in an old car he and his colleagues had repaired themselves.

Magnussen has spoken about an interest in farming and rural life in Denmark that exists alongside and partly in contrast to his racing career. The interest connects him to a Danish cultural tradition of practical, land-based identity and provides a context entirely outside the F1 paddock. He has said that the return to Denmark between seasons provides a necessary counterbalance to the sport's global circus.

Between 2010 and 2011, when he stepped away from F1, Räikkönen didn't retire to a beach — he went and competed in the World Rally Championship. He entered events including the Rally of Finland and Rally Norway, finishing respectably against full-time rally professionals. He also competed in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series during this period. Most people take sabbaticals to rest; Räikkönen used his to compete in two other motorsport disciplines.

Tennis is among Stroll's recreational interests, and he grew up with access to private courts as part of his family's extensive sporting infrastructure. He plays to a competitive standard and has used tennis as part of his fitness preparation. The range of sports available to children of extreme wealth — with private coaching and elite facilities — gives some context for the physical versatility he brings to racing.

Growing up in a family embedded in luxury fashion and design has given Stroll exposure to art, architecture, and design from an early age. He has spoken about these interests, and Aston Martin's visual identity and branding under the Stroll family ownership reflects an aesthetic sensibility that goes beyond standard motorsport.

Norris streams on Twitch under his own name with hundreds of thousands of followers, playing games like iRacing, FIFA, and various titles with friends from the racing world. His streams are notably unfiltered — he talks candidly about racing, life in Monaco, and whatever is on his mind. His online persona is essentially continuous with his off-camera persona, which is rare among sports stars.

Norris has been involved with iRacing as a brand ambassador and genuine enthusiast. He competed in their oval racing series and has been observed racing sim races with genuine seriousness rather than for show. His sim racing skill is good enough that he's competitive against dedicated sim racers rather than just celebrity participants.

Golf has become one of Norris's primary recreational activities. He plays regularly in Monaco and whenever his schedule allows, and has been photographed on golf courses around the world. He's competitive about it in the same way he's competitive about everything, and has spoken about golf as a welcome contrast to the intensity of racing.

Hamilton trains with a dedicated team that includes specialists in nutrition, physiology, and mental performance. His off-season fitness regimes have included everything from CrossFit to Pilates to boxing. He's been known to train twice a day during preparation periods, treating fitness with the same seriousness as his driving.

Lawson has spoken about the challenge of maintaining a sense of home identity while living and racing in England and Europe. He follows New Zealand rugby and sport closely, and his family's support structure — flying from New Zealand to European races — reflects the logistical reality of having a racing driver in the family from the Southern Hemisphere.

Webber joined the Porsche LMP1 programme in 2014 and competed in the World Endurance Championship until 2016, winning the championship in 2015. The move was characteristically direct: rather than retiring to broadcasting or team management, he kept racing at the highest available level. His performances in endurance racing — a discipline requiring car management and consistent performance over many hours — were excellent.

Verstappen is one of the most serious sim racers in the world outside of his actual F1 career. He streams on Twitch under his own name, competes in online endurance races like the iRacing 24 Hours of Le Mans, and has finished on the podium in serious online competitions. He has said that sim racing is how he relaxes after real racing weekends — which says a lot about how wired he is to compete.

In the early 1990s, having a dedicated personal trainer was not standard practice in Formula 1. Schumacher worked with fitness coach Balbir Singh throughout his career, treating physical preparation with the seriousness of an Olympic athlete. This pioneering approach to driver fitness influenced the entire sport — today it is universal practice. He trained daily, including on race weekends, and maintained an extraordinarily low resting heart rate.

Schumacher was a committed motorcycle enthusiast who raced superbikes in his spare time. He competed in the Superstock category at the Nürburgring — under a pseudonym — to avoid drawing attention. He broke his neck in a motorcycle racing accident in 2009 and required surgery, but returned to F1 for his Mercedes comeback season in 2010. He never stopped riding motorcycles after the injury.

Schumacher obtained a helicopter pilot's licence and used private helicopters for travel throughout his career. He flew himself on occasion and maintained the licence as an active pilot. Several colleagues and friends have described flying with him as memorable — he applied the same precision to helicopter flying as to everything else.

Schumacher skied regularly throughout his career and in retirement. His family home in Gland, Switzerland gave him easy access to Alpine ski resorts. He was considered an accomplished skier. It was during a ski holiday at Méribel in December 2013 that he fell and struck his head on a rock, sustaining catastrophic brain injuries that have kept him away from public life ever since.

When Häkkinen took his sabbatical from F1 in 2002, he spent significant time fishing in Finland. He has described fishing as one of the most genuinely relaxing activities he knows — the opposite of racing in almost every dimension. He has fished in Finland, Norway, and other Nordic locations, and continues to fish regularly.

Like many Finnish sportspeople, Häkkinen grew up playing ice hockey, which is the dominant sport in Finland. He has spoken about the transferable competitive instincts between team sports and individual motorsport, and maintains an interest in Finnish sports more broadly.

Piquet retained a serious interest in karting throughout his life and beyond his F1 career. He has competed in karting events, supported his children's motorsport careers, and maintained the view that karting is the most technically pure form of racing. Several of his children have competed in motorsport at various levels, continuing a family tradition that extends well beyond his own three championships.

Golf has been a consistent part of Hülkenberg's recreational life throughout his career. He plays regularly in Switzerland and at courses near race venues, and the sport's combination of precision, patience, and outdoor activity suits his personality. He approaches golf with the seriousness of someone who wants to actually be good at it rather than simply playing for appearances.

Rosberg maintained his F1-level physical conditioning after retirement and began competing in triathlons. He has completed Ironman events and trained with the same structured approach he used during his racing career. Fitness remains a core part of his identity and daily routine.

Lauda took flying seriously enough to obtain professional commercial pilot qualifications rather than just a private licence. He flew passenger aircraft for his own airline, sometimes on commercial routes. The image of a three-time Formula 1 world champion in the pilot's seat of a commercial airliner is one of the more remarkable footnotes in aviation history.

Bearman grew up playing football and remains interested in the sport. He follows English football and has maintained friendships from his school years in Essex — a connection to life before the full-time European racing circuit that he has described as important to his sense of self. His Essex background is something he maintains with some pride in a paddock dominated by drivers from more cosmopolitan European backgrounds.

Piastri grew up gaming and continues to play regularly. He is not as publicly prominent in the streaming world as some of his contemporaries, but gaming features regularly in his personal life and he has participated in various F1 gaming events. His taste in games extends beyond racing simulations.

Piastri is a Melbourne Demons supporter, following Australian rules football from Monaco via streaming services. The cultural connection to home through sport is something he maintains deliberately. He has attended AFL events when in Australia and uses the sport as a way of staying connected to Melbourne while living and racing in Europe.

Gasly has a genuine interest in French food and what it represents culturally. He has visited high-profile restaurants and spoken knowledgeably about French cuisine. Like Ocon, living abroad has reinforced his connection to French food culture, and he maintains it consciously as part of his identity.

Golf features in Gasly's recreational life alongside his training commitments. He plays in Monaco and internationally, and like many drivers finds that the mental focus required by golf provides a useful counterpoint to the pace and intensity of racing.

Grosjean's interest in cooking is genuine and long-standing — he has spoken about it as a form of meditation and creativity that complements the analytical demands of racing. He has shared recipes, appeared in food-related content, and developed a lifestyle presence that extends well beyond the motorsport world. His cooking aesthetic tends toward French technique applied to approachable ingredients.

After retiring from F1, Barrichello returned to racing in karts — the discipline in which all racing drivers begin their careers. He competed seriously rather than for show, entering proper karting championships and demonstrating that decades of F1 experience translate directly back to the basics. He remains competitive in karting events and clearly enjoys it enormously.

Swimming was part of Barrichello's fitness regime throughout his racing career and continues to be. Brazil's beach culture is part of his background, and swimming — both in pools and in open water — has been a consistent part of his active life.

Vettel maintained beehives at his Swiss home and spoke frequently about the importance of bee populations to global ecosystems. He brought honeycomb to the paddock to share with journalists and spoke at length about colony collapse disorder and pollinator decline. His beekeeping was not a hobby for show — colleagues describe him as genuinely knowledgeable and dedicated to it.

Vettel owns a significant collection of vintage cars spanning various decades of automotive history. Unlike many celebrity car collections which are status-based, Vettel's reflects genuine knowledge and passion for automotive history. He has attended vintage racing events and has driven some of his collection cars in demonstrations. He is said to know the history and provenance of each car in detail.

After retiring from F1, Vettel has participated in historic racing events, driving period-correct cars from various eras. He has spoken about the joy of racing without the pressure of championship points and the pleasure of mechanical simplicity compared to modern F1 cars.

Football is Mexico's dominant sport and Pérez's passion for it reflects his national identity. He follows Liga MX and the Mexican national team, and has been photographed at football events in Mexico during off-seasons. The overlap between Mexican football fandom and Pérez's F1 following has created a distinctive crossover fan culture.

Unlike most top-level drivers who focused exclusively on Formula 1, Moss competed seriously in sports car racing, touring car racing, and rally events throughout his career. In some seasons he competed in more than sixty events across different disciplines and countries. He treated each as a genuine competition — not an exhibition — which is one explanation for the mechanical failures that hampered his championship campaigns in F1.

Bottas appeared in a Finnish charity cycling calendar in which participants cycled without clothing. He participated cheerfully and has spoken about Finnish culture's relationship with nudity (saunas, etc.) as an explanation for why this seemed more natural to him than it might to drivers from other backgrounds. The calendar was well received and Bottas's willingness to participate increased his popularity considerably.

Bottas has been cycling since childhood and takes it seriously — he is an enthusiastic road cyclist who rides for both fitness and pleasure. He married Australian professional cyclist Tiffany Cromwell in 2023, and cycling is a shared passion in the relationship. He has participated in road cycling events and is genuinely athletic on a bike rather than a casual weekend rider.

Bottas maintains sauna practice as part of his regular life, consistent with Finnish culture where sauna is a serious institution rather than a luxury. He has spoken about sauna as both physical recovery and mental reset, and has a sauna in his home. He has described it as something that connects him to Finnish identity regardless of where in the world he is living.

Tsunoda has spoken enthusiastically about anime and manga in multiple interviews. He is a One Piece fan and follows other series with the kind of detailed knowledge that reflects genuine engagement rather than casual exposure. His interest in anime is not performed for a Japanese audience — it is simply part of his personality. Living in Italy, he has introduced colleagues and journalists to specific series with characteristic enthusiasm.

Zhou's social media engagement — across platforms popular in China and internationally — reflects interests that extend well beyond racing. Fashion, music, and lifestyle content sit alongside race-weekend coverage in a presence that has been deliberately cultivated to speak to audiences who may not be Formula 1 followers but who follow him for other reasons. This crossover audience is something the sport values as it attempts to broaden its demographic reach.