René Rosin: Vesti and Bearman maximising PREMA Racing rewards after tough 2022 lessons

A tough winter break to reflect on the missteps of 2022 was exactly what PREMA Racing needed according to Team Principal René Rosin. Following a season that was ultimately disappointing, this year has been a totally opposite experience for his two drivers and the team overall.

The returning Frederik Vesti has thrived upon his PREMA comeback while rookie teammate Oliver Bearman has carried on his Formula 3 form and is the highest-placed rookie in the Drivers’ Standings, currently fourth. Both have been hugely impressive across the board so far this year according to their boss, but the start of the season wasn’t the high note they’d have hoped for.

“Bahrain was quite a difficult event in terms of points,” Rosin explained. “We had the penalty for Fred in race and we exited Bahrain with zero points. But if I look at the performance there, I was not scared because I saw good stuff coming from the engineers’ report and from the feedback of the drivers so honestly, it was just a question to put everything together and already from the second round, everything started to go in the right direction.

“Both drivers and the engineers have been working hard continuously trying to improve to maximise the potential that drivers with experience like Fred has. Being consistent is key in Formula 2, always being on point, always there when it counts.

“Oliver on the other hand, I’ve said since the beginning of the season that for Ollie, the first four rounds would be the most problematic because you only have three days of testing beforehand and it’s quite a difficult circuit in terms of tyre management. Then you’ve got Jeddah, Melbourne and Baku with no testing allowed before and no experience there. Honestly, he did a very good job. Then it was unfortunate what happened with Imola because, together with Monza, it’s the closest race to our factory so it would have been very good to have our fans there. But then we moved on to Monaco and Barcelona and both Fred and Ollie have done a tremendous job.”

The blend at PREMA in 2023 is very balanced, with an experienced hand on one side and a very promising rookie on the other. Both have driven one another to higher performance levels so far this season, and it’s Vesti who leads the way in the Drivers’ Championship heading to Spielberg.

The Dane’s 2021 departure from the team to ART Grand Prix came as a surprise to Rosin, who believed that PREMA was the prime place for the Mercedes protégé to take his career to the next level. His return has demonstrated that to be the case with Vesti hitting new heights. He already has more wins than his past two years and has matched his tally from 2019 with PREMA in Formula Regional European Championship (3).

For Rosin, Vesti is now demonstrating a new maturity that has brought a new level to his driving, resulting in better performances and most vitally, more race victories.

READ MORE: The evolution of Frederik Vesti

“Honestly, when he won with us Formula Regional, then moved with us in Formula 3 alongside Oscar (Piastri) and Logan (Sargeant), I was expecting him to stay with us in 2021, but it was decided that he would not.

“Of course, that was quite tough for me because I was expecting him to stay with us another year and try to fight for the Championship. But I think it also helped Fred to grow up mentally and now he is back with us and even more mature. He knows what he wants, and we work very well together. He works very well with his engineer and the rest of the team and honestly, he is bringing home the results that everybody's expecting.

“When he says that PREMA is like a family for him, I really appreciate the message. We always get on very well with him. That message was quite touching to be honest. So of course, competition is extremely high and he’s a hard worker and he's never tired or anything. This is something that will make the difference at the end of the season.

Over on the other side of the garage, inexperience has hardly been a barrier to success. While Bearman took his time to get to grips with the Formula 2 car, he has found his feet and then some. Victorious in the latest Feature Race in Barcelona, his Spanish win added to his Baku dominance in which he topped every session of the weekend.

HIGHLIGHTS: Bearman makes it three in a row for PREMA with Barcelona Feature win

His form has followed a similar trend to last year in his rookie Formula 3 campaign. The Briton was searching for strong early results as he acclimatised to the Championship, and he made a few mistakes along the way.

Like last year though, he has found his best form arriving in a critical part of the season, one in which he built a late title charge in 2022. Rosin says that the early errors have subsided and that along with PREMA giving him the tools to succeed, his talent has been clear from the very beginning, even if results don’t show that on paper.

“The performance was there since Bahrain. Of course, the race didn't go as we were expecting but then we arrived in Jeddah and he was there fighting. I would say it was misfortune in Melbourne when he touched the wall in the wet. Luckily the Red Flag permitted us to repair the car during Qualifying, and then he went out again and did a solid job, but we always knew that the first races for him would have been difficult because of the characteristic of the circuits and him having less knowledge than the others.

“We must remember he turned 18 just a few weeks ago. He came to F2 after one year of Formula 4 and then Formula 3. He’s still quite young. The jump between Formula 4 and Formula 3 is pretty big and, of course, sometimes you pay with stupid mistakes that can be avoided but that’s a process. So, we are trying to give him all the instruments, all the techniques, all the knowledge that we can in the fastest time possible for him to learn quickly.

“Sometimes being a team, doing some mistakes is part of the job and it's part of the learning curve. Our goal is of course, to win as much as much as possible. We will do our best to make sure that both drivers will always have a top car, a top strategy and top equipment. This is our job, and we try to do our best to deliver the best results possible.”

The strong finishes, podiums and victories have been down to hard work according to Rosin, who says the team did a lot of analysis after last year in order to right the wrongs from 2022.

Though the team took a step back from its Championship-contending expectations, last season was not a waste for the Italian outfit. Problem areas were identified, improved upon and now, with Vesti and Bearman both achieving their strongest results of the year in recent rounds, the team is benefitting hugely in 2023.

“I must say yes, ‘22 was not as good as we weren't expecting. But I want to point out that even if I look the poor results, the poor performance of the team, we could have still been in the top three of the Championship with Jehan Daruvala, which have brought us the possibility of also being in the top three of the Teams’ Championship also. So, I will say yes, we were a bit below expectations, various issues and driver mistakes meant we lost some points and that changed the outlook in the Championship. Of course, when you start doing good results, then is a bit easier to keep the momentum. When you start having bad results, sometimes you go into a negative spiral that can bring you down.

“We didn't perform as the two years before, when we won the Teams’ Championship in 2020 and in 2021, but on the other hand, I cannot say that it was totally a throw away. We have things we learned a lot about. I think we could have done a much better job, for sure, and over the winter we reflected on our mistakes, looked where we could improve, and this year is the result. I think it's appropriate.”

Arriving in Spielberg with the lead of both the Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships, the Italian outfit is going from strength to strength, with the team only failing to score a podium at two Rounds so far in 2023.