sophia celeste ricciardo is a name not so unfamiliar in the world of f1, whether you know her from being little sister of driver daniel ricciardo, girlfriend of lando norris or from her instagram account where she has quite a following, you've probably heard her name a few times over the past week, as she has been caught in quite the scandal. on sunday afternoon, about an hour or so after the chinese grand prix was over, soph found herself caught up in a fight with instagram model alexi rae sanders. after many allegations in the media were thrown about, we managed to grab the first official interview with the 22 year old since the incident happened. soph arrived in pretty good spirits to say she's 2 months away from a court date which decides her fate, she was closely followed by boyfriend lando and best friend lilian, who were most likely there to make sure we didn't drag soph out of her comfort zone. the first question we asked her was 'how do you feel about the way you're being portrayed in the media at the moment' she smiled to us and replied 'straight in the deep end aren't you, well to be honest I haven't really been reading what they're saying about me, I'm trying to keep my spirits up and all they're really doing is trying to make 2 stories a day from one comment or picture. I have better and more important things to be doing then reading them painting me to be something I'm not. I have nothing but regret about what happened last week and people are making me out to be a bad guy in a situation I had little control over. they are all saying I provoked the fight even though 100's of people who were there have come forward and said it wasn't me at all' the next question we asked was 'in your own words, what exactly happened between you and alexi last weekend' she once again smiled at us 'honestly, it's not much different to what fans and lil have been saying, I was doing some pictures and meeting fans when alexi came up to me, I hadn't seen her since we were in Monaco back in February and with all that happened since then she was honestly the last person I expected to see at a race. she started throwing around insults about lando, dan and max and I just ignored her and carried on talking to fans, she kept grabbing my shoulder, scratching all my arm, pulling my hair and trying to start a fight, I pushed her off of me a few times yet she still wouldn't get off, so I sort of just lost my composure and turned around, she made a pretty deep scratch on my arm and I have the stitches to prove it so really I just kind of hit her, I wasn't even aware I was doing it until I had. honestly i felt awful and had about 5 people holding me back, I'm not one to fight but in that moment I think everything she'd done to me just got to my head' just by taking a look at sophs nature and smile, she didn't seem like a violent person at all, she spoke softly and seemed timid not at all the type to start a fight at all. we spoke some more and I found out how Alexi had been harassing a threatening soph while she had been on her own. we also found out she had ruined a pretty close friendship between soph and someone she didn't want being named, but by the end of the interview she was pretty glad to have gotten everything off of her chest.
please could everyone send some love to the gorgeous, confident young women, who deserves none of what she is being called
soph seen out and about in the UK last month
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