Formula 1 is racing this weekend in Barcelona, Spain, with the World Cup being a regular talking point through today’s media sessions ahead of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix as a number of the drivers get into the spirit ahead of the opener tonight.
One driver who will be keeping a very close eye on proceedings in Mexico City is Sergio Pérez, Mexico’s only F1 driver and one of its biggest national sports stars. He brushed off the ‘late’ 9 p.m. start time for the game here in Barcelona, saying: “That’s not late, I’m Mexican!”
“It’s a big day for my country,” Pérez said, adding that he planned to tune in for the opening ceremony. He’s also giving thought to flying home to Mexico for the game against South Korea next Thursday, but admitted it was “not so easy” through a run of F1 races in Europe.
Franco Colapinto walked into the paddock this morning wearing an Argentina shirt, being arguably one of the nation’s biggest stars besides Lionel Messi. He said it would be “bad luck” to predict Argentina would win the tournament, but was of course hopeful of a 2022 repeat.
“Of course, ’22 was a great World Cup,” said Colapinto. “We enjoyed it a lot in Argentina. They made us very happy and hopefully it’s another good World Cup, this one.”
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen is friends with a number of the Dutch national team members, but recognized the competition it faced. “There are so many countries out there,” he said. “There are always the clear favorites. I’m going to try and of course watch a lot of the games, even though I guess some will be quite late or early.”
French driver and PSG fan Esteban Ocon understandably felt optimistic about Les Bleus chances. “Everybody is talking about France, because also PSG was very strong in the Champions League,” said Ocon. “We won it, we have a lot of players from there that are in massive, great shape. We have Michael Olise as well, who’s in great shape.
“It’s exciting. I think it’s going to be very close with many different teams. But you can’t say we are going to arrive and destroy everyone. We need to stay with our feet to the ground and see if we can progress further.”
