Prema’s Oliver Bearman fragmented FIA Formula 2 campaign took a turn for the better with the British driver taking his first victory of the year during Saturday’s Austrian Sprint.
The Prema driver survived a sustained challenge from Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti to take top honours for the first time this year with championship leader Paul Aron taking his seventh podium of the year in third.
Bearman’s Prema outfit has been uncompetitive for much of the 2024 season, but a starting birth on the outside of the front row provided him the platform to challenge for a long-awaited first victory of this year’s campaign.
Invicta’s Kush Maini started from pole but Bearman had the stronger launch from second on the grid to grab the holeshot at lights out.
Maini then lost ground on Red Bull Junior Marti with AIX Racing’s Taylor Barnard making it a three-way battle into Turn 3 with a hard lunge down the inside that saw multiple drivers go wide of the apex.
This allowed Bearman to break away at the end of Lap 1 from Marti, Maini and Barnard.
Maini was a moving roadblock in fourth with a train of cars packed behind him on Lap 2, allowing Marti to move clear and into a comfortable second, albeit two seconds back from Bearman as Lap 3 began.
Maini, Barnard, Paul Aron and Gabriel Bortoleto were tightly packed on Lap 3 going into Turn 3, but nobody could muscle passed the third-placed Maini.
Five laps in and Marti had started to claw into Bearman’s advantage, drawing within one and a half seconds to the race leader.
Meanwhile, Alpine Junior Maini had settled into a more comfortable third, opening up a second gap back to Barnard, Aron and Bortoleto.
That trio changed around when championship leader Aron took his Hitech Pulse-Eight machine down the inside of Barnard into Turn 3 on Lap 7 to take fourth.
Aron went on to set the fastest lap as the field came on to the start of Lap 8, by which point Bearman’s lead was less than a second over Marti.
A DRS train had spread across the top four from Bearman through to Aron and the outcome of the 28 Lap Sprint was far from decided at Lap 9.
Barnard started to struggle at this stage, losing fifth to Borteleto at Turn 3.
He was then under threat from MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto and Joshua Durksen in the second AIX machine, but the latter was too hasty into Turn 3 on Lap 10 and had to escape to the run-off, leaving him vulnerable to Dennis Hauger.
Colapinto then made his move into sixth on Lap 11, again at Turn 3, the spot Barnard found all-comers challenging him during his slip down the order.
Out in front, Bearman, Marti, Maini and Aron were all running nose to tail, but all four looked settled in their respective positions.
Durksen leapfrogged his AIX team-mate Barnard to take seventh at Turn 3 on Lap 14, leaving Barnard the task of defending the final points-paying position.
At the halfway point, Bearman’s lead over Marti stood at approximately eight-tenths of a second with the Red Bull Junior enjoying a similar gap over third-placed Maini.
Points leader Aron was just half a second back from the top three and Bortoleto had unlocked enough pace to tag onto the leading group in fifth.
With plenty of drivers showing good tyre management, Barnard was on a continued descent, losing the final points position to Hauger on Lap 16, once again at Turn 3.
On Lap 21, Maini, Aron and Bortoleto engaged in a three-way tussle for third from Turn 3 down to Turn 4 with Aron emerging the victor in third place and Maini the loser, dropping behind both the Hitech machine and his Invicta team-mate Bortoleto to fifth.
This gave the top two a near two-second gap to the chasing pack, but whether Marti could challenge Bearman for victory remained to be soon with five laps to go.
The battle for the final two points positions developed on Lap 24, with Hauger passing Durksen to take seventh into Turn 3.
As the laps ticked by, Marti was unable to get close enough to attack Bearman, despite continual use of the DRS.
Onto the penultimate lap, Bearman broke the DRS in a bid to put victory beyond doubt.
All the while Aron was having to fend off Bortoleto in the battle for fourth as Hauger leapfrogged Maini to then challenge fifth-placed Colapinto.
Colapinto’s race came to a dismal end as he tried to run his MP team-mate Hauger wide at the exit of Turn 3.
The move was unsuccessful and saw the Argentine spin out of the points.
Bearman meanwhile, rounded out a lights-to-flag victory in style having successfully risen to Marti’s challenge for the entire 28-lap sprint.
Aron’s third-place finish provided a boost to his title bid with Isack Hadjar out of the points.
Bortoleto was unable to get into the top three despite running Aron close with Hauger rounding out the top five.
Barcelona Feature Race winner Jak Crawford climbed up the order to take sixth with Maini and Durksen rounding out the points-paying positions in seventh and eighth respectively.
