PREMA Racing captured a top-5 finish in qualifying for the FIA Formula 2 Championship at Bahrain with Frederik Vesti. The Danish driver posted a quick laptime in a close pack fighting for the front row, and eventually finished P5, improving lap by lap with both sets of tyres.

Ollie Bearman made his series debut and navigated a tight pack as he gained more chemistry with the cooler track compared to practice. The 17-year-old British driver eventually finished in P12 after a small mistake.

The series will go back underway tomorrow for the reverse-grid Sprint Race. Vesti will start Race 1 from P9 due to a penalty for impeding before lining up in P5 for the feature race. Bearman will start from the sixth row twice.

7 FREDERIK VESTI

“If this morning someone told me I was going to be P5, I would have taken it. It’s not pole, and it’s not where we want to be, but it’s a good starting point for this year. Now we have something to work with during the next few weeks. Of course, we have the races, but talking about qualy we can improve and move onwards. I’m excited for the races. I think we are quite strong coming from testing and I’m confident in race conditions. I’m looking forward to dropping the clutch tomorrow!”
Qualifying: P5
Fastest Lap: 1:41.897

2 OLLIE BEARMAN

“We had a difficult qualifying session. I was quite happy with the first set of tyres, and the car felt good. With the second set, I struggled a little more to extract the laptime and made a mistake on my lap which cost me quite a lot. It’s really close up there from P2 to where I was, it’s a tight pack. I’m looking forward to the races.”
Qualifying: P12
Fastest Lap: 1:42.026

Source | Photo: PREMA Racing