PREMA’s Oliver Bearman has revealed that he is happy with his “pretty clear sailing” weekend as he climbed to fourth in 2023 F2 standings.
Bearman entered the round sat eighth in the championship following a difficult trip to Monaco which yielded no points, yet bounced back with a strong performance at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain, to reignite his title challenge as he collected 29 points to climb to fourth in the standings.
The 18 year-old Ferrari junior finished second to his teammate – Frederik Vesti in practice on Friday (2 June) before he went on to claim pole position for the Feature Race later that day and pick up the two bonus points for pole.
Speaking post-Qualifying, Bearman felt he could of extracted more lap time as he commented: “Almost a perfect lap, left a bit of time on the table but I was happy with the performance, especially because you only get two laps.”
Bearman also referenced the minor controversy concerning his pole lap following arguments from Carlin that he had allegedly exceeded track limits at Turn 14, as he added: “You need to find the limit but obviously not go over it because you don’t have any back up.”
Bearman added further points in a wet-to-dry Sprint which saw rare pit stops as he climbed from tenth to seventh, although he was undercut by Van Amersfoort Racing’s Richard Verschoor in the pit-stop phase.
Reflecting upon his Sprint performance, Bearman described his race as “boring” but was “quite happy,” to be back in the points, amidst his mixed record in the Sprint Races so far this season.
Bearman’s Feature Race in contrast proved more exciting as he managed a positive extensive opening stint on the soft tyres until the end of Lap 13, which enabled him to keep the net race lead ahead of Carlin’s Enzo Fittipaldi once everyone else on soft tyres made their stop.
The Brit thereafter managed to make several overtakes in what he described as a “pretty clear sailing,” run to the checkered flag on the hard tyre, once those on the alternate strategy pitted for soft tyres.
Bearman however was wary of the fact that F2 races can often throw up race-changing curveballs without warning, as he explained: “Once I was in the lead, it was just the case of managing and saving a bit of tyres in case of a safety car or something like that.”
The result meant that Bearman now sits fourth in the drivers’ championship but 40 points off Vesti who leads the Championship, with seven further rounds left in the seaon as F2 now prepares to visit Austria on the weekend of 30 June – 2 July.
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