Pierre Gasly, winner of the 2020 Italian Grand Prix, had the honor of enjoying a three-hour dinner with NBA legend Michael Jordan, 6-time champion with the Chicago Bulls, but a true sports and cultural icon , which, more than 20 years after its successes, still has a very successful dedicated shoe line, the Air Jordans.
One of Gasly’s personal sponsors, who is a friend of Jordan, organized their meeting on Wednesday evening, ahead of this weekend’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix.
“It was by far the best experience of my life,” Gasly said Thursday. “The most inspiring dinner I’ve ever had. Ever since I was a child I’ve always been inspired by Jordan, his mentality and the successes he has achieved.”
“Everyone says you should never meet your idol, because you can only be disappointed, but that was the complete opposite. He’s just a genius, the way he thinks. I was very, very impressed.”
“I didn’t know he was a huge F1 fan. He almost knows it better than I do! It was very impressive, and it was great to discuss it with such a legend. It was a fantastic dinner, I will remember it for a lifetime.”
Gasly gave Jordan one of his helmets, and in exchange he got the legend to sign his Air Jordans.
“I gave him one of my helmets, he signed one of my Jordans – it’ll go to my safe at home, my trophy cabinet!” Gasly smiled. “By chatting with such a champion, he always learns so much about these guys and how they approach sport, success and failure.”
“It’s all a question of how you maintain this level of performance, I don’t think there was anyone else in the world that I would have liked to have met more than him.”
Michael Jordan, NBA Hall of Famer and co-owner of 23XI Racing
Photo by: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images
Last year Jordan entered the world of NASCAR, becoming the owner of 23XI Racing along with Denny Hamlin and now he lines up two Toyotas for Bubba Wallace and Kurt Busch. This was obviously a topic of discussion during dinner.
“Of course we talked about it, we talked about a lot of things,” added Gasly. “We spent three hours together – we talked about NASCAR, motorsport … I didn’t know he woke up early on Sunday morning to watch our F1 races. He’s a huge fan.”
“But it’s not easy if you are Michael Jordan to show up at events like this, although you would like to. Even if we don’t see him on the track, he follows us. I was quite amazed at how many details he knew about our sport. It shows that he has a huge interest in motor sports “.
When asked if he could drive one of Jordan’s NASCAR cars, Gasly added: “It could happen, it could enter.”
“We’ll probably meet another time. We made a nice bond over dinner. He’s a very special person, and we’ll see how the relationship grows from there. I got another invitation, when I’m back in the US, so clearly I’ll take advantage of it. “.
