Multi-lingual F1 personalities

Racing events, drivers, cars or anything else from the past.
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Multi-lingual F1 personalities

#1

Post by PTRACER »

Lately I've been going through a lot of French TV sources for the forum and it has surprised me is how many F1 personalities are actually fluent in French.

James Hunt, one of the most English people I know, spoke broken French but was still good enough to give TV interviews. Frank Williams is absolutely fluent in it and Stirling Moss' French is also good.

What other languages are spoken by F1 personalities, past and present? Do any of our British F1 drivers speak other languages in European TV interviews?
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#2

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Massa speaks Portuguese, but also English, and Italian
Alonso is as above but Spanish not Portugese. He also speaks French.
Rosberg is the champion though, being totally fluent in 5 languages.... German, English, Italian, Spanish and French but despite his father being Finnish, he is only semi fluent. He is learning it more at the moment, making it six languages..
Oh yeah Jenson speaks Japanese fairly well.

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#3

Post by Manfred Cubenoggin »

Not restricting the thread to current F1 pilots, I make mention of Jo Bonnier. My recollection was that he spoke five languages fluently. Nope. Six.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joakim_Bonnier
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#4

Post by erwin greven »

Michael Schumacher spoke (hard to write that) German, English, Italian and French.

Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
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#5

Post by JBT »

Frank Williams also speaks fluent Italian - there's a Channel 4 documentary about Williams' 1988 season on Youtube somewhere, and part of it shows him calling an Italian sponsor in his office. (not sure who though, I can't remember an Italian sponsor on their '88 cars?)
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#6

Post by FASTFREDDIE »

I remember Martin Brundle speaking French to some extent, as well as Stefan Johansson. By the way, Sir Jackie is fluent.
Anyway, the FIA is a French organization and car racing was born in France...
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#7

Post by erwin greven »

France was not the place of the first auto race, but the first organised contest was.
Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
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#8

Post by FASTFREDDIE »

Of course I was talking about organized contest. If not, we could consider Enrique Iglesias' "Tired of being sorry" clip as a race... or even any "red light GP"...
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#9

Post by erwin greven »

:huh:
Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
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#10

Post by ReneLotus »

Barrichello spoke some Dutch as he used to have a Dutch girlfriend long ago. Sometimes Allard Kalff or Olav Mol would ask him something in Dutch.
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#11

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

Paul di Resta is a name I forgot from my first post.... He is half Italian, and speaks fluent Italian, as well as English. He is also fluent in German French and Spanish.

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#12

Post by PTRACER »

Anyone with a strong Scottish accent shouldn't really attempt other languages :tongue: I saw David Coulthard attempting Japanese once and I don't think anyone could understand him.

It would be cool to hear clips btw, especially of Rubens speaking Dutch.
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#13

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

PTRACER wrote: It would be cool to hear clips btw,
Paul (Di Resta) and his Italian roots, mixing and speaking with the locals and his family in Italy.


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* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
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#14

Post by ReneLotus »

Haven't found anything of Barrichello talking Dutch yet, but here is Nico Hülkenberg showing his fluency in Dutch.


EDIT: This one should work :thumbsup:
Last edited by ReneLotus 7 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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#15

Post by PTRACER »

Doesn't work for me. I think there's a regional block on the videos on that site :(
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