Interview with Rally Driver Christine Giampaoli Zonca: Her Passion for Racing and Response to Controversy at F1 GP in Barcelona

“Let’s do this: at the next F1 race send me on video together with Bobbi and Valsecchi, so maybe this time I’ll be the one to make a couple of jokes to those two…”. He jokes about it Christine Giampaoli Zonca, rally driver, one of the girls who during the last Formula 1 GP in Barcelona had been at the center of two-way jokes by the two commentators on Sky, Matteo Bobbi and Davide Valsecchi. Suspended from driving for one race, the two ex-drivers immediately sent an apology message.

Christine, or as everyone calls her “Christine Gz”, tells it like this at Courier: ‘I didn’t feel offended, it was just a joke. I realized it because everyone started writing to me. They were also polite, it’s not like they said who knows what…». She was in the paddock of the Montmelò circuit with another girl, “whom I had met that same day: she doesn’t want to talk but she too didn’t take it badly”.

Italian parents, she lived in Perugia and Varese, then as a child she moved to the Canary Islands and it was there that she discovered her love for racing: she competes in the Extreme E championship (electric off-road vehicles with over 500 horsepower, the was by Alejandro Agag founder of Formula E) with the team created by the famous DJ Carl Cox. It is a very competitive series where the off-road specialists compete: Nasser Al Attiyah, five times winner of the Dakar, is also there to understand the level

Christine discovered her passion for engines by seeing her neighbor driving an old Toyota prepared for rallies, and from then on she always went on the run. She set about disassembling and reassembling the car, looking for a team that believed in her. It’s a world where men are the majority, have you ever experienced harassment or harsh comments? “They always ask me this question, and I say no. As in all working sectors, there are those who make a comment that maybe can be annoying, or something else, but I’ve never had any problems. I’ve always had a good relationship with all the Mthere”.