03/09/2012
NEWS STORY
Last week Pitpass gave readers a peek into the preferred past time of Toro Rosso driver Daniel Ricciardo. The revelation that the Australian enjoys riding his quad bike through sand dunes in his home country came courtesy of a photo Ricciardo took of his beloved 'toy' for the upcoming Zoom auction, which features signed pictures taken by all the F1 drivers and team bosses as well as other well-known personalities connected to the sport. Today's image comes from Jaime Alguersuari, the man who relinquished a Toro Rosso seat for Ricciardo at the end of last year.
In addition to his duties as a test driver for Pirelli, Jaime, who can be found on Twitter at @AlguersuariJA spent part of the summer in Ibiza partaking in his favourite past time, working as a DJ, is also to be found on Grand Prix weekends commentating for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Far from the quad bikes and pets which are the subjects of some of the photos taken by his former colleagues, Alguersuari's photo, Alguersuari's perhaps the most cultured of those which have been released so far, is of the Alhambra, an ornately-designed 10th century palace and fortress complex. It is located in Granada around 400 miles to the south of Alguersuari's home town of Barcelona. The palace occupies the top of a hill on the south-eastern border of Granada and was built for the last Muslim Emirs in Spain. It isn't off the beaten track though and is one of Spain's major tourist attractions as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Zoom has also released a photo taken by Michael Schumacher which, along with Jaime's picture, can be seen in our gallery. Ever the sportsman, Schumacher's photo shows the view from the driver's seat of his Mercedes and he says "if I had to find a title for this picture, it would be very simple: 'the office'. The cockpit of a Formula One car is a place where I feel completely at home, and everything is second nature."
These photos are two of the 50 in the auction and fans who want to bid for them should keep an eye on the Zoom website as well as its Twitter and Facebook pages. Pitpass will be publishing more of the Zoom images exclusively over the next week and readers should email the editor if they would like to see the photo taken by any specific driver.
We understand that Kimi Raikkonen's picture is particularly entertaining and enigmatic, and reflects the Finn's fearless nature. Watch this space.
Check out our Zoom gallery, which is updated on a regular basis, here