In recent days, we at Formula1.it had the pleasure and honour of exclusively interviewing the young Swedish talent from the Ferrari Driver Academy, Dino Beganovic. After discussing topics such as his arrival at Maranello in the FDA and his personal story, with all the financial challenges faced by his family to allow him to race in motorsport, we spoke with the DAMS driver about his physical and mental training.
This is a fundamental topic for any athlete, but even more so for drivers. When they are in the car, they are subjected to accelerations, decelerations and extremely high levels of G-force, which only those who are perfectly trained can withstand for the entire duration of a race.
“As far as physical training is concerned, it is very important to always keep yourself busy with the gym, cycling and any other type of physical activity. Here at Ferrari I have my personal trainer who helps me with all these things, so that when I am here in Italy, or even when I go to Sweden, I can train with him following all the training programmes we need to do.”
“Training is important because you do not want to struggle when you are in the car. You always have to devote 100% of your concentration to driving and you cannot even think for one second about being tired.”
In addition to training the body, however, for an athlete, especially in recent years, it is also essential to train the mind, in order to remain as clear-headed as possible in both positive and negative moments. Speaking about this, Dino said:
“As far as the mental side is concerned, it is super important. I think the mind is one of the most important things we have, both in life and in sport. If you do not feel good mentally, it is very difficult to give your best. Precisely for this reason I have spent time focusing on this aspect over the years and I have become much stronger mentally. Having the right people around me, I think, is fundamental. So yes, as I said, it is a huge part of the sport.”
If you go on Dino’s social media profiles, you will see that very often, when he is not busy on track or in the gym, he is still training or practising different sports. Two of his favourites are certainly golf and padel. When we asked him how he spends his “rest” weekends away from Formula 2, the Swede replied:
“Thank you for saying that I am athletic, that is very kind. When I am not on track, I think that, as you said, I dedicate myself a lot to other sports and to physical activity in general. Golf is one of those I devote a lot of my time to when I do not have work to do on the simulator or more generally with the team. It is a way for me to relax and focus on something other than motorsport, which I think is very important because it can also become stressful if you always focus only on one specific thing or on work. It is always very nice to play a bit of golf with friends, as well as, of course, spending time with my family so I can also recharge my batteries.”
Beganovic has been living in Italy for several years now, near Maranello and Ferrari’s headquarters. On this subject, we wanted to continue our long conversation with Dino by asking him whether there was any particular aspect of our country that he liked most. Without thinking twice, the DAMS driver surprised us by saying: “First of all, I really like Italy, living here is really nice. Obviously I like the food. Every time I go back to Sweden, or go to another country, I realise how lucky I am to live here. Wherever you go, you always find excellent food, people are all kind, always welcoming and warm. This is one side of Italy that I really like.”
“As for football, however, I do not follow it much. My brother is a footballer, so I should be more interested than I actually am, but honestly now I am following Sassuolo a bit, as they are currently in Serie A. I have two friends who play there, but beyond that I do not really follow it.”
Many drivers have superstitious gestures or actions that they always repeat before getting into the car and taking part in any session on track. We wanted to conclude this third part of the interview by asking him precisely whether he had any of his own.
“In the past I had many, for example I always had to listen to a specific song before getting into the car. But I stopped doing that last year because I realised it had become a bit silly. At the moment I do not have anything in particular. Obviously I have my routine that I do with my trainer, doing physical exercises and putting on the race suit very late, so that I stay fresh for as long as possible, and then I take everything a bit as it comes. If I feel I need music, I put on some music; if I do not feel the need, I do not do it. It depends more on how I feel at that moment.”
We thank Dino Beganovic, the FDA and Scuderia Ferrari HP for the courtesy and availability shown during the interview. Partial reproduction of this exclusive content is possible with prior citation of the author (Giuseppe Cianci) and of the source Formula1.it with a link to the original content.
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari HP
