Tonio’s trophy cabinet
“Welcome to my trophy room. The photo below was taken at my parents’ home – the place where I grew up. It’s a big 1960s villa about 5km from the coast near Pescara in Italy…”
1. “This picture was painted by the 14-year-old nephew of one of my sponsors. He and I are great mates, and he gave me this painting after I picked up my first points with Toro Rosso at Indianapolis last year. The background scene reminds me of Baywatch.”
2. “Here is my first karting license. I won my first race in 1992, but back then I was just doing regional races and they didn’t gave us proper trophies. Instead we got certificates.”
3. “This was one of my greatest moments – the karting world championship final of 2001. Not only did I take the title that day, I also beat Michael Schumacher. We had a chat on the podium and I was surprised by how friendly he was. I hadn’t been a particularly big Schumacher fan, but when I met him I realized just how cool and professional he is. I was well impressed and asked him many questions about F1.”
4. “The Casco d’Oro is Italy’s version of Britain’s Autosport awards. I’ve won two of these little figures and this one was due to my victory in the 2004 F3000 championship. I managed to take seven wins in ten races that year.”
5.“I like to stand out from the crowd so I really enjoy wearing funky race boots. I wore quite a few special editions last year, which pay respect to the country we’re racing in, or the Italian World Cup squad, things like that.”
6. “When I was a kid I played this piano for five years. My parents pushed me to do as many hobbies as I could – music, football, even ballet. My favourite to play was the theme to The Godfather. I would play it all day long. But after a while I got bored and gave it up.”
7. “As a kid I used to sleep with my helmet because I loved it so much. I came up with the design myself. The original inspiration for my first helmet was Jean Alesi’s, but since then I’ve modified it a lot and now it doesn’t look anything like Jean’s. By the time I was 15 I had 30 different designs.”
8. “This is one of my favourite trophies. I won it at a karting world championship race at Suzuka in 1999. I suppose being glass it’s quite fragile, but I never dropped a trophy. I’m extremely careful with them, because they are precious to me. The smartest trophies are usually awarded for international races, so most of these cups were won overseas.”
“This is just a small collection of my trophies and racing paraphernalia. I never throw anything away, I keep it all stored in boxes and one day I’d like to have it all on display in one room. When my racing career is over, these items will help me never to forget my memories. My parents even keep every newspaper and magazine that has my name or picture in. Soon they may need to move to a bigger house!”