Reports surfaced Wednesday that a promising evening for former Formula One driver Giedo van der Garde took a turn for the worse when his Tinder date started asking him about his friendship with Lewis Hamilton.
van der Garde matched with 24 year-old Cynthia Blunt on the dating app, where his profile prominently featured the fact that he was a former F1 driver, and included multiple pictures of himself in the Monaco pit lane. The first date started off well enough, according to sources, with general small talk ranging from, “Is ‘van der’ your middle name or part of your last name?” to “Have you ever driven a Lamborghini?,” but things soon went off the rails when the subject of conversation switched to current F1 champion, Lewis Hamilton.
Initial questions such as, “What’s Lewis like?”, “How many tattoos does he have?”, and “How many times did you overtake him?” were easily handled with vague non-answers by van der Garde, sources say, but the conversation turned awkward as Blunt continued to evade his attempts to change the subject.
“Will he be at your party this weekend?” was met with a quick shake of the head, no, from the former Caterham F1 driver, who regretted ever mentioning that he was having a party. Blunt further prodded, asking, “But didn’t you guys work together?”
“Yes… but we weren’t on the same team. Esteban Gutiérrez will be there,” was met with a sharp, “Who?” from Cynthia, before she tried to convince van der Garde to “just DM Lewis on Twitter and tell him about it.” Blunt was taken aback when van der Garde explained that he couldn’t “DM” Hamilton on Twitter because Lewis didn’t follow him back; a requirement for direct messaging on the platform. “He doesn’t follow you? He follows Warwick Davis,” she continued, refusing to let the conversation die.
“Look, I don’t know the guy very well. I’ve met him a few times, but that’s it,” the frustrated driver blurted out, his body language silently pleading for this line of questioning to end.
The once-promising date came to an abrupt halt soon after when van der Garde stormed out after Blunt asked, “Did he ever let you try his car?”
A 3 a.m. text message from Blunt asking, “Did you ever meet Ginger Spice???” was left unanswered.
