Ferrari young driver mentor: "Perez can be too aggressive"

The head of the Ferrari Driver Academy, former Ferrari F1 engineer Luca Baldisserri, has put out an interesting status report on the young drivers in his programme.

The lead focus is on Sergio Perez, who got a podium in Montreal at the weekend for Sauber. But Baldisserri makes an interesting comment on the Mexican, which clearly shows how closely he is being monitored by the Scuderia, who regard him as one of their own, but at the same time is designed to shoot down speculation that they are soon to make a move on Perez. Instead it shows that they feel he still has a long way to go before being ready for a possible promotion to Ferrari.

“After Monaco, we had a discussion with Sergio,” Baldisserri says on the Ferrari.com website today. “We wanted to find out why recent results had not lived up to expectations after the Malaysian Grand Prix.

"Perez is undoubtedly talented, but he often lets himself down by being too aggressive which, especially in Formula 1, does not deliver results.

"The Montreal race was a great response, a race in which Sergio not only ran at a great pace, but also managed his race very well, managing to stay on track for fifty laps on the same set of tyres."

The FDA is also developing Brandon Maisano, in Italian Formula 3, Raffaele Marciello in the European Formula 3 series and Canadian schoolboy Lance Stroll in karting. They also have Force India test driver Jules Bianchi, who is racing in Formula Renault 3.5 this season.

Bianchi's career isn't evolving as it should be doing. He didn't make the breakthough after two seasons in GP2 and has gone back to Formula Renault 3.5, alongside regular Friday morning outings for Force India. But unlike Paul di Resta in 2010 and Nico Hulkenberg in 2011, you don't get the feeling that this is leading towards a race seat for 2013 for the Frenchman.

Bianchi is managed by Nicolas Todt, who also has Pastor Maldonado and Felipe Massa on his books.

Read the full report on Ferrari.com HERE