SIX racing drivers are playing beach volleyball – and it’s painful to watch. Gabriele Minì, who will spend the 2024 season racing for Prema in F3, wins six points in a row for his team through only his serve. And it’s not that his serve is that good – it’s because the other team is that bad at intercepting the ball before it hits the sand.
This is one of the activities in the Alpine junior team training camp in Tenerife, ahead of the racing season. Minì is teamed up with fellow F3 driver Nikola Tsolov and F2 driver Kush Maini, while on the other side of the net are Victor Martins, Sophia Flörsch and Olli Caldwell. But even if this volleyball match looks like madness, there’s methodology in it.
The match is the ‘bit of fun’ part of the programme set out by David Thompson, Alpine’s Head of Human Performance. A day mostly made up of physical training within the large Tenerife Top Training facility – where other professional athletes are diligently preparing for the Paris Olympics – is broken up by some
