Keeping things simple: Tuukka Taponen’s Hometown Tour

ART Grand Prix rookie Tuukka Taponen is the latest driver on the 2025 grid to give us a tour of his hometown, planning out what to do from start to finish.

The Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy member starts off with a simple breakfast from a bakery, before planning a visit to the beach, capital city and a Thai dinner.

“So my hometown is Lohja, it’s close to Helsinki, south of Finland and around 40 minutes from Helsinki airport. So it's quite close to the airport, and it's easy to go there. Honestly, in my hometown - there is not a lot of things there. It's quite small, but I enjoy being there. It’s a nice break from all the travel and stuff like that.

“For breakfast, there’s a bakery nearby which would be a place to eat something good. There’s a few of them actually. There’s an Italian place actually, but I wouldn’t go for an Italian because I can go there when I’m in Italy. So yeah, I’d stick with a good Finnish bakery.

“I think after it’d be better to go to Helsinki rather than staying in my hometown because honestly, there isn’t a lot of things to do.

“In the city you have all the shops, and everything you could want. You can see a bit more too. It’s like Milan, but a bit smaller. The buildings are up close next to each other, you have shopping centres, so I’d recommend going into Helsinki rather than staying in Lohja.

“For lunch, I’d prefer to leave the city and come back home and go to this Thai restaurant nearby. They do really good chicken there.

“I think afterwards, we could chill out, take it easy. Maybe we could go to the beach. We have a small beach nearby, that’s a cool place to go to. Lots of people go there, especially in the summer.

“Dinner would have to be Finnish style. So it’s not a big pasta dish or anything like that. You’d have a lighter meal, bread, yoghurt. That’s what we do usually, that’s how we do it in Finland.

“We basically eat four times per day. Have lunch quite early, have a second lunch a bit later, 4pm or so, and then have dinner around 9pm but have something lighter. I’d have something small by myself usually, that’s how I’d do dinner.

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“I wouldn’t say there’s anything that you should avoid, or overrated let’s say. But I think Finnish people are really, really kind. Many people might not know that as we’re quite quiet people as well.

“We don’t want to talk too much, but in the end, when you know someone a lot and you’re in Finland, we actually talk quite a lot.”