PREMA’s Oliver Bearman has hailed his F2 dominance in Baku, Azerbaijan, as “an amazing result.”
Bearman topped Practice on Friday morning before he went on to snatch pole position by just 0.012 seconds from Carlin’s Enzo Fittipaldi in Qualifying later that day, albeit with bent steering as he set his maiden pole lap before he went on to win the Sprint and Feature Races in a dominant weekend.
Speaking post-Qualifying, Bearman described his Qualifying session as “crazy” but was “happy” to take an unexpected pole, as he explained: “In the end, I was not expecting it because I had a bit of damage to the car.
“I was actually ready to pit at the end of my first lap and I got pole in the second one.”
Bearman then benefitted from an error from his teammate Fredrik Vesti at Turn 4 on Lap 19 to clinch his maiden F2 win in the Sprint, just moments before the Safety Car was deployed due to a huge race-ending crash at Turn 1 involving five drivers across two separate incidents.
The 17 year-old afterwards admitted that he entered the “crazy” race with “no expectations to win but just to do the best.”
Explaining his Sprint Race strategy with one eye on the Feature Race, Bearman said: “In the opening laps, I was just trying to keep my nose clean, which was my goal. I really just wanted to do the race and prepare for tomorrow.
“Once it kind of opened up, we saw we had quite a strong pace and I was able to come through.”
Bearman also was pleased to see Vesti finish runner-up as he added: “It was also a 1-2 so I’m really really happy that all the hard work is starting to pay off.”
Bearman concluded his “successful” weekend with a dominant victory in the Feature Race despite losing the lead to ART GP’s Theo Pourchaire on Lap 3, which he regained a lap later before cruising to victory once everyone had pitted.
Addressing the feeling that many might of thought his win was “easy”, Bearman commented: “From the outside, it might have looked a bit easy, but it’s never easy, especially at this track where the tyres don’t really suffer and you’re doing qualifying laps again and again.
“It is super difficult, especially with a lot of pressure behind, like at the start when I had Pourchaire pushing a lot. However, I knew what to do when he passed me and I fought back. I controlled it after that.
“Fittipaldi was coming towards me at the end but I managed to keep the gap stable and got this great result which gives me a lot of confidence heading into the European rounds where I know the tracks.”
F2 next head to Imola where Bearman has previously gone well with two wins in 2021 Italian F4, with the Brit confident that his experience “is going to help me a bit” as he looks to finally ignite his title challenge.
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