PREMA secures top-5 result, reverse-grid pole at Silverstone
PREMA Racing secured a fifth place today at Silverstone as the FIA Formula 2 Championship went underway for Round 8 of 2024 at the British venue. The session was held in dry conditions after an earlier shower, and the team turned out to be one of the main contenders right from the start.
Ollie Bearman made it to the top-5 with his final flying lap. In the end, the British racer could not battle for pole but took home good starting spots for both the weekend’s races.
On the other hand, Kimi Antonelli could not maximize qualifying due to a series of circumstances. Early in the session, the Italian suffered from engine issues, and could not put the lap together in the closing stages, having to settle with P10. Making his first start at Silverstone, Antonelli will start the Sprint Race from the front of the grid.
#3 OLLIE BEARMAN
"Not the easiest qualy today. I felt that generally on lap one we are really competitive. In the first push, I was pole, and the first push with the second set was also pretty good. We just struggled a bit to get the feeling right for lap two. It feels like we have a little too understeer in lap 1 and a little too oversteer in lap 2 so it’s a bit of a difficult balance. That makes it really tough to put the perfect lap together, but I’m quite happy with the job we did, we are up there for both races. Still, I felt like the second lap was going for a bit of a better result but that didn’t materialize in the end."
#4 KIMI ANTONELLI
"Qualy done, and I had a few engine issues during the session, but I also made a little mistake in lap 1 of the second set, I lost quite a bit there. On lap 2, the tyres were not there anymore. We were a bit affected by the little issues we had, plus my lap was not perfect. Still, we will be starting from P1 tomorrow, and P10 for the Feature Race so we can do good things from there."