Heading in the right direction: PREMA Racing Pre-season Roundup

PREMA Racing enter the 2025 Formula 2 campaign looking to build upon a 2024 season in which they ended strongly after a slow start.

The Italian outfit struggled to get to grips with the new F2 car at the start of last year, with their first podium not coming until Round 6 in Spielberg, when Oliver Bearman won the Sprint Race.

From then on, he and teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli were consistent fixtures towards the front of the field, the Italian winning the Silverstone Sprint and Budapest Feature Races.

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With Bearman winning two more Sprint Races in Monza and Lusail, PREMA ended the year fifth with 179 points. But they will no doubt want more and, as their 2025 driver Gabriele Minì said at pre-season testing, a lot of work has gone into this new season.

“PREMA has been working very hard over the winter, and I have been too,” the Italian explained.

“They came up with what seems to be a very good package, so I’m very happy about this. The race simulation was very positive so happy with today.”

Minì was talking at the end of Day 2, after he topped the timesheets with a 1:23.660, which also end wound up being the fastest time of the test.

The Italian driver steps up to F2 having deputised for Bearman at Baku last year, finishing third in his debut Sprint Race.

He did this weeks after completing his Formula 3 season with PREMA, finishing second in the Drivers’ Championship, losing the title at the final corner of the Monza weekend to Leonardo Fornaroli.

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Since then, Minì has been working hard, using everything he learned from Baku and at the Abu Dhabi post-season test to prepare for the upcoming campaign, this includes adapting his driving style and putting on eight kilograms of muscle.

So far, it looks like the work he and PREMA have done over the winter is paying off.

Reflecting on the test afterwards, Minì said: “It was a lot of hard work during those three days. We put to test all the work we basically did over the winter, both me as a driver and as a team. We know the car, so straight away we were quite competitive, already from the first push we did on the first morning.

“We then worked even harder during the days, trying to improve the little things we could improve, but I think we showed pretty strong pace both in the quali and race simulations. So, I am very happy with it.”

When asked whether everything PREMA had worked on during the winter had matched what they had seen in Barcelona, Minì replied: “I think, yes.

“I think the team knows better what we need, what we wanted to try and see and if the things we thought would work, actually worked on track, but I think it was going in the right direction. It doesn't mean it will always work but it's good way to start like this.”

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It was not just Minì in good form though as the strong pace was also displayed by his teammate Sebastián Montoya.

The Colombian driver went into pre-season testing having had just three days in the car at the Abu Dhabi post-season running, where he was getting to the grips with the step up from F3.

But he did spend the final two weekends of 2024 in Lusail and Yas Marina shadowing the team, listening in on debriefs and watching what Bearman and Antonelli were doing closely.

On top of that and like Minì, he also worked over the winter to adapt his driving style to the F2 car and has been in the gym putting on muscle to get ready for the heavier machinery.

Montoya though also made a good start to the test, ending up with the fourth quickest time in both the morning and afternoon sessions on Day 1.

From then on, his focus was around doing as many laps as possible to get even more comfortable in the car, and with 201 laps heading to Melbourne he will be feeling good going into Round 1.

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As is Minì, who after completing his 202 laps, said: “I am feeling quite good to be honest. I know I have a strong team behind my back, historically they’ve won a lot of things.

“We've been working so hard over the winter, I've changed a lot of my driving style from Formula 3 and from what I learned in Baku. So, we will see how it goes in a couple of weeks.”

With just over a week to go to the new season, the early signs are promising for PREMA, and they, like the rest of the field, will get a clearer understanding of where they stack up against their rivals in Melbourne.