Pista – Prema R03 Melbourne – FIA Formula 2 Race 2 Report

PREMA Racing posted a double points finish today in Melbourne, as Round 3 of the FIA Formula 2 Championship in Melbourne.
Starting from P2 on the grid, Kimi Antonelli took fourth place. After taking an early lead, a virtual safety car handed a free pit stop to one of the competitors during the mandatory stops. Still virtually running in second, Antonelli then dropped two spots to P4 as tyre degradation started to kick in. Coming from yesterday’s DNF, he still achieved another points finish and his best result in the series as it heads into his home round, Imola.
Ollie Bearman also claimed a points finish in P9, starting from Row 8 on the grid, but the British racer was hampered by a VSC timing that left the team with no option other than to a double-stack pit-stop. That prevented him from getting a better result despite the good pace and forced him to settle for a spot in the top-10.

#3 OLLIE BEARMAN
“A decent race as I managed to come back through the field and the pace felt really good. The first lap and generally the first stint were really good and I managed to get up to a good position. Unfortunately with everything happening we had to double stack and lost some time there but also the safety car put us on the back foot so we were a bit unlucky in that regard. Afterwards it was very hard to overtake as we were all in a train. Tough second part of the race but I think the pace we showed was quite good.”

Qualifying: P16
Starting Position Race 1: P16
Starting Position Race 2: P16
Fastest lap: 1:30.570
Race 1: P14
Race 2: P9

#4 KIMI ANTONELLI
“An overall pretty difficult race. The first stint was really good, I was able to keep up with the front runners but after our pitstop we were definitely struggling a lot, didn’t have the pace we had yesterday and it was really difficult to drive the car that was quite unpredictable and looked like we suffered a lot more degradation compared to the others. It’s a shame as things were looking good but we just missed out on a podium. Now we have a bit of a break but then we are back to work with three days of testing in Barcelona which will definitely be useful to understand how we can improve.”

Qualifying: P2
Starting Position Race 1: P9
Starting Position Race 2: P2
Fastest lap: 1:29.038
Race 1: DNF
Race 2: P4