Van der Garde revels in Olympic spectacle

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All the Formula One teams might have closed up for the mandatory summer break, but it probably hasn't escaped anyone's attention that there is another fairly big sporting event just getting started in Brazil.

The 2016 Olympic Games staged a spectacular opening ceremony on Friday night, and although motorsport isn't one of the events included in the 16 days of competition in Rio de Janeiro it didn't stop former Formula One driver Giedo van der Garde from being amongst the crowd where he cheered on the team from the Netherlands - and took this terrific selfie in the process!

Van der Garde competed in Formula One in 2013 with the Caterham F1 Team, which saw him make 19 starts. His best result was 14th place which came in the Hungarian Grand Prix. He moved to Sauber as a test driver in 2014 but subsequently split with the team in a dispute about whether he had been guaranteed a race seat in 2015.

Since leaving Formula One, the 31-year-old driver has moved into endurance racing and his G-Drive Racing team is currently leading the LMP2 class of the 2016 European Le Mans Series after securing victory in Silverstone and a runners-up spot at Imola. Unfortunately his first entry in the official 24 Hours of Le Mans ended prematurely in retirement.

Not that any of that will be on the Dutch driver's mind now as he soaks in the spirit of the first Olympic Games to be staged in South America: sun, sea, sand and sport is clearly the perfect cocktail for van der Garde this weekend!

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.