Prema FIA Formula 2 duo Oliver Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli are both hotly tipped for future drivers in Formula 1 and the senior driver amongst the young pair has said it’s “nice” to share that experience with his Italian counterpart.
Bearman is a Ferrari and Haas Reserve Driver, participating in the first of six slated FP1 sessions with Haas this weekend at Imola, a few months after making a surprise Grand Prix debut with Ferrari.
Antonelli meanwhile is a Mercedes Junior and despite having just progressed to F2, is being lined up for a potential Williams berth or even as Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes replacement.
To that end, Mercedes has already tested the Italian teenager in its 2021 and ’22 machines and Bearman has enjoyed sharing the combined F1/F2 experience with his Prema counterpart.
“[Antonelli’s] also had a lot of opportunities in F1 testing which is great and I mean I don’t really have much to offer to him,” Bearman told select media including Motorsport Week on Thursday.
“He has a great network around him anyway and it’s nice that we can kind of share the experience and talk about it.
“What we learned, what we found different about the car, what we found strange about jumping back into the F2 and stuff like that. So it’s kind of a yeah that’s a good thing.”
Talking of F2, Prema had a difficult start in Bahrain, but the pace of the car improved at Jeddah and Melbourne with Antonelli finishing fourth in the Australian Feature Race.
Bearman spoke only positively about his relationship with Antonelli, as the pair work together to make Prema as competetive a package as possible in F2.
“Yeah of course we have a close relationship and being teammates in F2 we are both looking for the same goal which is ultimately to have the fastest car and I think so far we’ve had a really good relationship and we’ve managed to push the team forward,” he said.
Whilst Antonelli has scored points in four of the last five races, Bearman’s F2 campaign has been fragmented.
He was of course pulled from pole position at Jeddah to contest his F1 debut and in Australia an impressive charge from 16th on the grid to eighth in the Sprint was curtailed by a 10-second penalty.
Then in the feature, his lowly grid position due to a technical hiccup in qualifying meant a spirited display could only merit a ninth place finish.
“The pace in Australia was very strong,” said Bearman.
“I was not able to show it because I had a technical failure in qualifying but that’s part of the game.
“That’s part of racing. You have to be prepared for that at some point.
“So yeah I need to now bring some consistency and I think now’s the time to do it.”
