PREMA’s Sebastian Montoya said he really enjoyed his run to second place in the FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race at Silverstone.

The Colombian, son of 2005 British Grand Prix race winner, Juan Pablo, scored his third podium of the 2025 season, bagging eight championship points.

“It was really nice and I really enjoyed it,” the 20-year-old said. “This track is amazing, Silverstone is one of those few race tracks that are still super historic, like Spa and Monza.”

He told exclusively told InsideF2 that it is “special” to be racing at the circuit where his dad claimed his first win for McLaren 20 years ago.

“I was three months old, I was here with him, I don’t remember it, but the pictures are great!” Montoya said.

Talking about his Sprint Race, he said: “It was an awesome race, I got a great start and was able to get up to P3 [after starting sixth] and then after that I was patient.”

After vaulting up the order on Lap 1, the Colombian said Kush Maini, who was second, did a good job in defending the position, telling us that it was “difficult” to overtake.

He credited his PREMA engineer for helping him stay calm in order to find a way past the Indian driver in the DAMS Lucas Oil car.

After starting at the rear of the Alpine-liveried car, Montoya seized his opportunity on Lap 15, diving to the inside at Stowe corner to snatch second place.

Despite strong pace thereafter, the PREMA driver had to settle for second behind Leonardo Fornaroli in the Invicta, as the Italian ended a four-year win drought.

Montoya said that with a couple more laps, he might have been able to grab the win.

He added that following an experienced F2 driver like Maini, who is in his third year in the series, gave him an opportunity to learn from him.

“It really opened my eyes in the first couple of laps to understand what I needed, where I could save and where I could push a bit more, and that helped me massively.”

Montoya highlights changes that have boosted performance

The PREMA driver told InsideF2 that he had made some changes ahead of the season to the team around him, i

“Not only in the racing side but also in my personal life and its benefitted me a lot,” he revealed.

He added: “I didn’t realise how much potential I was giving up, and being able to maximise not only my full potential, but all the tools I have, is incredible.”

Montoya also creditted his PREMA team mate Gabrielle Mini for pushing him to reach higher levels.

“Gabrielle is a very talented driver and he’s extremely quick. I don’t think I would be where I am right now without him, because he is super quick,” the Colombian said.

Mini demonstrated his potential at the end of the 2024 team when he made his F2 debut with PREMA in Baku, scoring a podium in the Sprint Race.

Montoya said the boost he’s got from putting himself in a positive environment has been “quite big”.

Ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race, which Montoya starts fifth, he said he’s going to be doing everything to grab his maiden F2 win.

He added that he’d be going through all the data from the Sprint Race to identify where he can improve to maximise his result.

IMAGE CREDIT – Photo by James Sutton – Formula 1/Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images