Bearman Wins in Austria, Prema’s First Trophy in Formula 2 2024

Ollie Bearman dominates the FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race in Austria after a controlled drive to keep behind Campos’ Pepe Martí, earning him PREMA’s first podium of the season.

Ollie Bearman took the lead from reverse grid pole- sitter, Kush Maini before Turn 1 after a lightning-quick start from second on the grid for the PREMA driver.

Pepe Martí also made up places on Maini and Taylor Barnard to take second at Turn 3, however he did pick up front wing damage after making contact with the Invicta driver as they went three-wide on the opening lap.

Martí lost the endplate of his Campos’ front wing as a result of the contact, but it didn’t seem to cause him too many issues as he managed to keep Bearman in sight throughout the opening stages of the Sprint Race.

By lap 8, Martí got within one second of leader, Bearman. Closely following Martí was Maini and Paul Aron, all with the benefit of DRS, but all struggled to find a way past, finding themselves in a lengthy DRS train.

The two AIX Racing drivers, Barnard and Josh Dürksen were well within the points paying positions in seventh and eighth. They were having a great battle between themselves until Dürksen got ahead of his team mate and pulled a healthy gap to start chasing Franco Colapinto.

Barnard quickly became under pressure by Sunday’s Feature Race pole-sitter, Dennis Hauger who overtook him at Turn 3. Barnard seemingly starting to struggle with his tyres.

Aron finally managed to get ahead of Maini on Lap 21. Maini came on the radio to complain about the move into Turn 3, saying he had been hit by the Hitech driver. Later on in the lap Maini’s team mate, Gabriel Bortoleto also found a way by and started his chase on Aron for the final place on the podium.

After running fifth in what had been a strong race for the Williams Academy driver, Colapinto made a mistake at Turn 3 which dropped him down to 11th on the final lap.

He was being overtaken by MP Motorsport team mate, Hauger, but tried to run him onto the kerb on the exit of the corner, but caused himself to spin.

Bearman crossed the line to finish first ahead of Martí, making it the first time this season that himself and PREMA have been on the podium in Round 7, the only team before today to not have a trophy in 2024.

Aron managed to take third place back in the closing stages of the race, extending his championship leader ahead of Isack Hadjar.

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