10 Years of Friendships: Getting To Know Rivals Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì

Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì recently reflected on their decade long friendship, looking back on their karting rivalry, living together, and learning from each other as teammates

Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì recently figured out that they have known each other for 10 years and that got them reminiscing about their time together.

From their stint as teammates to their on-track battles, the current Formula 2 rivals reflected on the best and worst parts of the last decade, as well as their first impressions and what they learned from each other.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN EACH OTHER?

Gabriele Minì: Since 2016, 10 years.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! HOW WILL YOU CELEBRATE?

Dino Beganovic: It means a lot. We have had some great battles on track this year as well, so we will celebrate like that.

Minì: We are going to give a slipstream to each other out of each corner to celebrate.

Beganovic and Minì have known each other for 10 years and first met in karting

WHAT WAS THE FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE OTHER?

Minì: The first serious time we met was probably in F4.

Beganovic: That was properly when we started to know each other. But for me, my first impression of him was in 2016, my first couple years in Italian karting, and before that he was dominating everything, so I was obviously looking at him. Then after we started racing quite a lot in 2017, 2018, 2019 in karting, but we never really spoke. But 2020 we were teammates and we had good times.

Minì: I remember the first time we met quite well. Of course we were always fighting in karting. He was always starting at the front. Always! Every time in every final, he was on the front row. Every time! Then the first time we started to speak was more in 2020, and he was really really quick, especially in the first test we did, he was super quick.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING TEAMMATES?

Beganovic: It was nice. We pushed each other so hard because we knew each other, so we pushed each other even harder. So it was quite nice.

WHAT DO YOU SAY WERE EACH OTHER’S BEST QUALITIES?

Beganovic: I would say that with Gabriele is that when we're off the track, at least when we were teammates, we were able to separate our lives from racing which was quite nice. On the track he's always been fast, in my opinion.

Minì: We always fight so hard. I mean we have also had some crashes, but that's part of it. As you saw even in Miami, we can fight really hard without one or the other getting pushed off or going into the wall, which is not common every time.

The duo talked about the ability to race wheel-to-wheel with one another

WHAT WAS THE WORST CRASH?

Minì: Race 2 in Dubai.

Beganovic: Ah yeah that was really bad.

Minì: It was already really tense after Race 1 because we fought really, really hard. He was a lot quicker, but I was trying to hold on for dear life, and I got the wrong message. I thought it was the last lap, so I almost put him in the wall.

I didn't realise it was that close, and then in the end I let him by because I thought the race was over. I just said yes, I started celebrating and then they told me good job, good job, and then we started pushing again. Then in Race 2, we were starting close again and we crashed.

Beganovic: Yeah, that was bad. We didn't crash in Race 1, we crashed in Race 2.

Minì: But it was so useless that crash. There was no point in doing it. We were out of the points, it was a reverse grid race, we were in P15 or something, so there was no point in that crash. No point! It was so stupid!

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST THING YOU’VE LEARNED FROM THE OTHER?

Beganovic: I think in F4 when we started as teammates, it's a bit more technical but Gabriele was really good at keeping the car very stable with his pedals. It’s something that I learned quite a lot from him.

Minì: For me it was his race pace, especially in F3, he was always really, really fast. Once again, it's a bit more on the technical side but it's the type of information that you get from every teammate you race with, and this is something I keep with me.

Both drivers reflected on their time as teammates including with Arvid Lindblad in Formula 3

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE THING TO DO AS TEAMMATES?

Beganovic: That was to go eat sushi.

Minì: We were always going. We had some adventures that we did even with Arvid that were really funny.

Beganovic: Also in F4 we were always going to go eat sushi. Always! We were eating so much we could barely go home. We were sharing an apartment because I lived close to PREMA and when he was coming he stayed in the apartment.

Minì: From the apartment it was like a 20-minute walk, but on the way back home it was 40 minutes.

HOW COOL HAS IT BEEN TO SHARE THE LAST 10 YEARS OF THIS JOURNEY WITH EACH OTHER?

Beganovic: It is nice. Also he is featured in my documentary because we have quite similar backgrounds. None of us really come from a very rich family and so in that sense it's even more special. We have raced many of these guys for a long time but it makes it a bit more special that we kind of have similarities in that way.

Minì: Yeah, exactly. It’s very much the same to be honest.

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