Feature
Federico Malvestiti: My ultimate driver
Jenzer Motorsport's Federico Malvestiti has a varied list of favourites when it comes to who would make up his ultimate driver.
The Italian has a favourite Formula 1 champion in mind but also a Ferrari icon from an era where pushing to the limit made legends.
INTELLIGENCE
“Ayrton Senna. I think apart from the talent he had, he was really smart. He was thinking how to be always a bit better every time it was in the car, and how to be better than the others. He was also starring against good drivers at the time. So it was not a common thing for that period because drivers were more just get to the car and drive. And he was I think he changed a bit the mentality of the work.”
DRIVING IN THE WET
Max Verstappen, every time the track is wet, he’s always faster than the others. He’s really talented and he’s always able to find the limit. A step above compared to many other drivers, even when the car is not on top, he’s able to put his Red Bull in first place.”
DRIVING IN THE DRY
“I’d say Gilles Villeneuve, he’s my idol since I was a kid. He was always pushing on the limit, even if the car had three wheels. He was always pushing on the limit so I’d say Gilles.”
QUALIFYING
"Lewis Hamilton because he always destroyed his teammates in Qualifying. He’s always able to pull out a very good lap at the very last moment in Q3. He’s very talented and puts the lap together without mistakes. To do a good lap in Qualifying you have to minimise mistakes and he’s very good at this.”
TYRE MANAGEMENT
“Fernando Alonso. We’ve seen many times when he drives very slow at the beginning of the race to save the tyres, then he pushes very hard. Paul Ricard for example and last year in Budapest, defending like hell from Hamilton. He’s very good at managing the tyres.”
BRAVERY
“Gilles Villeneuve again. He was not afraid. He wasn’t a car racing driver at the very beginning, he drove snowmobiles on the snow so for sure, he wasn’t afraid to keep his foot to the floor. He had a few mistakes but he had to be brave enough to do some of that stuff. Driving without a front wing or a missing wheel, he was brave.”
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SMOOTH OR AGGRESSIVE?
“Normally for how my style is, I’d say smooth. I prefer to have a clean driving style but sometimes to be fast, you have to be aggressive like in Qualifying for example. You have only one lap so you don’t really care if you’re driving aggressively.”
OVERTAKING
"Verstappen or Charles Leclerc. They’re very aggressive in overtaking and in the past few years, Verstappen has become very smart with that. In the last few years he’s become smarter, in the beginning he had a lot of mistakes but now he’s very aggressive and risking maybe too much but he’s good at overtakes.”