Delivery drones and quality food: Gerrard Xie’s Hometown Tour

While many will be relaxing by the pool during their summer break, expect Gerrard Xie to return home to Shenzhen to get his driver’s license.

The Hitech TGR driver came off his best Qualifying performance of the season in Budapest in fourth, but just prior to that, we spoke to him about where he grew up.

“I am from Shenzhen. I was born in Hong Kong but raised in Shenzhen, so I am more like the Shenzhen people I would say.

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“The city is quite new actually, just up to 40-something years old. It's a technological city, everything is quite new and life is easy there. Obviously, a lot of people come in from other places, also for my grandparents, they moved there, and it's just a pretty nice city, and a lot of tall buildings I would say.

“Growing up, there was not a lot of things for me to do because I was always focusing on school. But when I was young, I would like to buy a lot of toy cars and just play on the ground.

“The best place to eat is every non-fancy place. They have very good foods, and you can find some really cheap and good foods, and I would go there and eat with my friends, it's very good.

“There's a karting track just half an hour, 40 minutes away from my house and I went there every Saturday after school. I would just spend the entire day there. Monday to Friday school, Sunday a bit of rest and Saturday was for karting.

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“It's a high technology city so you can see some incredible things, like drones delivering food or delivering packages. It's been there for at least two years. I haven't used it because I am in Europe but it sounds quite cool and looks quite cool as well.

“During the winter I think I will go back after Budapest for two weeks or so because I have not got my driving license yet, so I will go back.

“The driving tests there is not too difficult, but it's just a theory, there is a pack of questions, it's 2100, so you have to remember all of them. The theory test is the hardest for a racing driver, I think.

“Anyway, there is a lot of stuff for people to see. I think it's a mega city and there are three city centres. One is slightly older, one is where I live and one is even newer and is a bit more modern.

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“So it's quite cool to have a look around the city, and also the city is quite big, so you can spend a few days just look around. It's quite a cool city I would say.

“There is a major park as well, but I think it’s better to just to look around at the city, explore it than actually going to find somewhere.”