Interview with Matteo Nannini: F2, F3, Motorsports and TikTok

In The Pits sat down with Formula 2 and Formula 3 driver Matteo Nannini to chat about all things motorsports. The Italian-Argentine driver is already proving himself to be a force to be reckoned with, after taking his maiden F3 win in Hungary earlier this season. The 18-year-old races for Campos and HWA Racelab in F2 and F3 respectively and is already looking ahead to his bright future.

Here’s what he had to say:

The Season So Far

It’s been an up and down season in both F2 and F3 so far, from winning in Hungary and fighting for the podium to a heartbreaking retirement in Spa.

He referred to the win in Hungary as “really satisfying,” for both himself and the team and hopefully, there is more of that to come. We chatted more in-depth about the season so far, with him commenting “the season up to now didn't go as planned because at the beginning of the year, my goal was to obviously fight for the win of the championship. In some races we saw that I had the pace to fight for the top positions like in Hungary or like in Barcelona, but I [also had] some weekends with quite bad luck and where I could not even score a single point, like in Spa. It’s not what I expected as this is my second year in F3.”

However, the driver remains positive and believes in his talents, commenting “I have the speed to win and to battle if I have a good car.”

As we approach the final F2 race in Sochi next week, we chatted about the track and what his thoughts are about racing at the circuit for the first time. He describes it as “a sort of street circuit but where you can make some mistakes because the walls are quite far from the track. On the sim, it’s quite fun.”

He is also hoping that the series going to Sochi for the first time will put everyone on a level playing field; “This is a new track for almost everyone in the field. I think it will be the same for everyone so the driver that can adapt as quick as possible will have, let’s say, an advantage [over] the others.”

Nannini’s Future

With Nannini making the move to Formula cars, it was inevitable that we would move on to the subject of F1 at some point; we asked whether the pinnacle of motorsport was in his sights.

Nannini mentioned that F1 was absolutely the goal but also spoke about the difficulty of getting there, particularly due to the nature of sponsorship in the sport. “I will see what I will do. You need to be lucky that there is the possibility to do the bigger jump and to be in F1 but if there are no seats available, you will have to do another F2 season. For now, I will focus on having a good result by the end of the season in Sochi.”

His Italian heritage creates a certain passion, with his eyes set on Ferrari, with him mentioning that “he would love to race with the red team”, particularly as he is “one of the only Italians in the field”.

F1 Driver Academies are a big part of the lower Formulas. After his Hungary win, Matteo said he did receive interest from some F1 Academies but he is “trying to do something different because being in an academy can be really helpful but on the other end it depends, because if in the academy there are too many drivers, we don’t really know why they should take you instead of the other driver. I’m happy where I am, I have free choice, let’s say, and I will focus [on] getting good results and that is the best thing I can do at the moment.”

Matteo isn’t the only racing driver in his family. His cousin Alessandro Nannini raced for Minardi and Benneton in F1, however, this isn’t creating any pressure for the youngster.

“I don't really feel pressure about it because I try always to be known by myself, by what I’m doing on track.” said Nannini. “When I was younger I had more or less the same design on the helmet but when I moved to Formula cars, I had a new one because I wanted people to know me by who I am, so by Matteo now.”

At The Track

Nannini declared that ‘Thursday is the best day’ at the track. “Good or bad weather or for whatever reason it’s always the best day, you're always happy because you don't have the stress of the result or if you are low in the classification or in the front.”

You may have seen some of his hilarious TikToks! With 54.7k likes and over 318.7k views across all of his content, his first TikTok was made during downtime at the track:

“I was chilling in Hungary with my teammate and I was just looking on TikTok and I said ‘Oh, let’s try to do it.’ It was quite funny, I did it with Rafa, my teammate in F3 and it was a great way to spend some time”.

You can check out some of his TikToks here.

Our full interview with Matteo is available here. We’re certainly excited for his future and wish him the best of luck for Sochi next week!

Image Credits: (1) ASN (2) The Pit Crew (3) Matteo Nannini Twitter