The 22-year-old Londoner is Renault’s reserve driver for the 2018 F1 season but is waiting for his chance to seize a regular drive and confident he will get there

There is an easy-going charm and good humour to Jack Aitken. An articulate, witty manner that may be expected from a confident, privately educated young man but one that belies a fiercely determined streak when the visor comes down. Pleasing as it is to engage with a driver who has a personality, it is his will to win that will count as the 22-year-old attempts to make it to Formula One.

He admits this emphatic determination has led to his outlook being described as relentlessly pessimistic. It might be considered the mindset that has defined some of the great drivers, including Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, and Aitken has the bold ambition to aim for the heights they achieved.

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Last week he was at the first test in Barcelona in his capacity as Renault’s third and reserve driver. Part of the Renault Sport Academy, he has been awarded a role that is as close as a driver can come to F1 without being one of the 20 who will line up in Melbourne on 25 March for the opening grand prix of 2018. Should either Nico Hülkenberg or Carlos Sainz be unable to make a race, the Briton from Shepherd’s Bush in London will take their place but making that final step is a tiny sliver of Aitken’s aspirations.

“I celebrated when I got the call but I am not going to be happy for a long time, even if I get to F1 and start winning,” he says. “That’s the mindset you have to have. Guys talk about wanting to get to F1. That’s just not enough, I want to be the best. The guy that’s winning, the guy that’s dominating.

“Its relentless and I’ve been told it is a pessimistic view but it’s how you have to be. If you are happy with where you are, you are going to stay there. In any top level sport that’s not enough.”

Aitken’s path began watching F1 with his family aged four, when Schumacher’s domination proved an inspiration. “I loved F1 for the battles rather than the individuals,” he says. But unsurprisingly one driver stood out: “Michael was at the top of his game. I liked to watch him win, it was such a demonstration of absolute domination.”

Karting followed, including having to lie about his age to get behind the wheel on his first full experience aged seven. He was strongly supported by his parents, his South Korean mother – he sports the Yin-yang symbol of the Korean flag on his helmet​ and tweets in the language – and Scottish father, but did not consider racing as a career until relatively late, when he was 13. “I gravitate towards things I am good at and I happened to be good at karting,” he says. “I was small as a kid, underweight and short so I was not good at many other sports. But in karting it was to my advantage.”

Encouraged and bankrolled by his family, there was a crucial caveat: he was to stay at Westminster school until he passed his A-Levels, a tough deal to stick to. In 2012 he had switched to InterSteps, his first single-seater car series, and two years later was in the Formula Renault Eurocup while trying to keep his end of the bargain.

“That was very difficult. There were days when I would have an exam on the Monday and be revising over the weekend at racing. One weekend I was at Spa, I had brought my books with me and flew back on Sunday evening to do some last-minute revision. I got to the front door and had forgotten my keys so had to sit and wait for my parents who were driving back from the cirucit. It was not ideal.”

Two As and two Bs were the result, followed by the immediate decision to pursue racing full-time. He was not alone. Aitken is part of a wave of talented British drivers hoping to launch careers in F1, including McLaren’s Lando Norris (aged 18) and the Mercedes’ junior driver George Russell (20).

Aitken made his breakthrough in 2015 when he won the Formula Renault Eurocup. At the final weekend in Jerez the title was up for grabs by eight drivers. In the first two races on the Saturday in terrible wet conditions Aitken was in a different class. He had gone into the weekend in third, by the close he was champion. Renault offered the academy place afterwards.

Renault’s F1 managing director, Cyril Abiteboul, backed him strongly last year, saying: “We deeply believe in Jack.” While Mia Sharizman, the director of the academy, has said it was not only a strong work ethic that impressed but Aitken’s key attributes – “speed, intelligence and mental strength”.

After his first season in GP3 in 2016 Aitken joined Russell at ART, where Russell had the edge and Aitken struggled with a car that did not suit him. It proved only a further incentive. “Last year things didn’t go that well. I still finished second but it’s nowhere near enough,” he says.

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The two will drive again as team-mates in F2 this year for ART and Aitken is already more confident with his new car. The real goals lie ahead. Renault are serious about battling for the F1 championship by 2020 and Aitken knows he is in the right place at the right time.

“Renault are going about it the right way and they are going to get there,” he says. “In a timeline of the next three years, whenever I can hopefully step into the car that is bang on for when they want to be fighting for wins.

“People recognise this is the place to be,” he adds with a broad smile that conveys his pleasure at being part of it. A glint in the eye, though, intimates this alone will be nowhere near enough to satisfy this driver.