Bearman and Antonelli, one step away from becoming official in F1
We all know by now, all that’s missing is the official status next year in Formula 1 we will have two young rookie drivers: Oliver Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
The English driver is in fact settling with Haas after having impressed well a few months ago aboard the Ferrari replacing Carlos Sainz at the last minute, who underwent emergency appendicitis surgery during the Singapore Grand Prix.
Antonelli hasn’t ridden a 2024 Formula 1 yet but has already carried out some tests with the 2022 Mercedes W13 impressing the technicians of the German company positively.
A difficult championship to interpret
Both of these young drivers are competing in their Formula 2 season this year. Antonelli Antonelli as a rookie while Bearman is in his second season in the category. Furthermore, it so happens that the two drivers race for Prema as team mates. The Englishman won four races in Formula 2 last year, however, finishing only sixth in a season of ups and downs. In the first races of the 2024 Formula 2 championship neither of them has yet won a race nor did he reach the podium, be it feature race or sprint race. Of course they can boast of scoring points in good positions and Bearman in particular, who however has not been free from mistakes so far, has a pole position in his bag in Jeddah which however he was unable to exploit because he had to replace Sainz in Formula 1 on Ferrari. At the moment the Formula 2 championship standings are led Paul Aron. The Estonian driver, who is also a rookie in Formula 2 this year, he showed considerable potential and excellent regularity, which allowed him to achieve five podium finishes between feature races and sprint races.
These excellent results from Aron do not seem to convince any Formula 1 team to offer him a contract for next season. It should also be added that Aron was a driver for the Mercedes Formula 1 Academy until 2023. At the end of last season, however, Mercedes and Aron decided to part ways and as is known, Kimi Antonelli remains in the German Academy’s nursery and is gaining access to Formula 1, strongly desired by Toto Wolff. We therefore have to ask ourselves what is the interest or value for a young driver to do well in a Formula 2 season, which should be the cadet series of Formula 1, if then winning the title of this series does not give concrete advantages to access the maximum Formula.
Formula 2 has certainly seen its title won by many champions who are now established as Leclerc, Russell, or of great potential as Plates. But there have also been drivers who won the title who then rose to Formula 1 without impressing and with forgettable performances. However, names of abilities not comparable with the pilots mentioned above. Let’s remember for example Mick Schumacher in 2020, Nyck de Vries in 2019 with runner-up none other than Nicolas Latifi. But there were also drivers who, despite having the title of Formula 2 champion, did not go beyond the role of reserve driver in Formula 1. As was the case for example with the Brazilian Felipe Drugovich Aston Martin reserve driver and 2022 champion. Or others who had to emigrate like the talented one Theo Purchaire2023 champion and belonging to the Sauber Academy and this season he is an IndyCar driver for McLaren, while they still race in Sauber Zhou (third place in F2 in 2019) and Bottas.
Chasing a dream that doesn’t (always) come true
If F1 has “drive to survive”, F2 has its more timid docuseries entitled on YouTube and F1TV “Chasing the dream” or chasing the dream. Clearly the dream is to enter Formula 1, but now this motto is starting to sound a bit like a chimera because that pursuit more often than not proves in vain for the champion of the category. Now it is clear that Formula 1 teams have all the means to evaluate the skills and potential of a young driver, without caring too much about how they fare in Formula 2, and they even admit it openly. Their assessment is most of the time totally spot on and it is very likely that it will be so for Bearman and Antonelli too. It is also possible that these two drivers are not standing out in Formula 2 as the single-make cars they are racing this season are completely new and therefore the teams are still in the process of adapting and understanding these single-seaters. For this reason it is possible that a multi-titled and highly experienced team like the Prema, today only sixth out of ten teams in the standings, is struggling to extract the best from the car, while other teams like Campos Racing and Hitech they seem to have immediately found the key to the problem, allowing their good drivers Aron and Hadjar to occupy the top areas of the rankings. The same Hadjar, driver of the Red Bull academy he has already won two feature races and is showing interesting speed. Yet he has never been nominated among the candidates to move up to F1 with one of the two teams of the Austrian company.
In conclusion, if Formula 2 is not capable of being a solid springboard for its champions who aspire to Formula 1 or of not consistently producing absolute champions, what is its purpose? Perhaps the International Federation, which has made so much effort in conceiving a Formula 2 model closer to the characteristics of a modern Formula 1, should make some reflections.
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