An up and down season for many seasoned drivers, has left fans wondering what’s going on behind the scenes.

F2 in 2024 has been anything but predictable. With a new Dallara chassis being introduced this season, teams have had to learn how to get the best out of this new car, with some big names struggling to get on top of it.

The Prema lineup of Oliver Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, seemed like somewhat of a feeder series super team. Bearman now a second year driver, with impressive speed and now more experience, and Antonelli, who doesn’t need much introduction, winning in every series he’s competed in thus far in his career, was expected to be right at the sharp end from the start. 

The Prema outfit themselves have been a formidable force not just in F2 but across the different levels of feeder series competition. So one would have expected more Prema supremacy in their 2024 campaign, but this couldn’t have been further from reality.

After 10 of the 14 rounds Prema currently sit 7th in the teams championship, with Antonelli and Bearman in 7th and 15th place respectively.

Prema have seemed lost with this new generation of car, with occasional glimpses of speed such as in Austria where Bearman won the sprint race, then in Siverstone and Hungary with Antonelli taking a sprint race win in the former and then a feature win.

However between these infrequent peaks the team has struggled for outright pace with neither driver able to challenge consistently at the front.

Compounding that has been some out of character mistakes for Ollie Bearman this year. Perhaps his head isn’t quite in the game after securing a drive at Haas F1 team in 2025, however it’s clear that Bearman has not been at his best. Significantly trailing his rookie teammate in the standings after too many incidents on track he will want to find some form to close out his final season in the championship.

Antonelli has been impressive, showing a cool head under pressure, and not getting into the same first lap incidents his teammate has been. The speed was there from the start as he outqualified Bearman by the slimmest of margins at the season opener in Bahrain. It must be said however all the rookies were advantaged by the levelling of the playing field of new car this year. Nonetheless, he’s done an exceptional job given Prema’s struggles and will also be looking to finish the season strongly and capitalise on any of their rivals misfortune.

Prema as a team have some work to do, they’ve not been able to figure out the source of their issues with the new car yet, and frankly it’s very possible that they won’t this season. They’ll be hoping to find the root of their problems at the post season test, to put them on track to retake their spot of top dog of F1’s junior category.

Header Image by Jen Ross, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons