PREMA and Alpine academy driver Gabriele Minì heads to the opening round of the 2025 F2 season at the Australian GP as one of the favourites to win the championship.
Minì, runner-up in the F3 championship last year, posted the fastest time of pre-season testing in Barcelona last month.
PREMA working hard to rectify 2024 issues
Formula 2 introduced a new car last season, meaning the pecking order changed. PREMA have been regular frontrunners and title contenders in the category over the years, but they never looked like that last year. In spite of that, Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and Oliver Bearman (Haas) got promoted to F1. They were P6 and P12 in the Drivers’ Championship. PREMA finished only 5th in the Teams’ Championship.
When Bearman drove for Haas in Baku thanks to Kevin Magnussen’s race ban, Mini got a taste of F2 action in the PREMA. He was P3 in the Sprint race, leading for a number of laps on debut and impressing many. Although he crashed in the feature when running in the top 10, the Italian backed by Alpine showed he belonged in F2 immediately.
Speaking to Pit Debrief and other media outlets ahead of the F2 season, the 19-year-old explained how hard PREMA have worked over the off-season to get back to their best.
Confident PREMA will be back to their best
“So yeah, last season they struggled a bit in some rounds, but as I said already in previous interviews, I think they’ve been working really hard during the winter. They’ve been putting on a lot of work, both on track and on the sim.
“Already in Abu Dhabi [in the post-season test], we tested many, many things. And to be honest, looking at testing, I think they understood many things and it looked like a positive one.
“Of course it’s hard to tell because it’s a long championship, even the winning [Invicta] team with Gabriel [Bortoleto in 2024], they were not every time the quickest, you know. So it’s hard to tell if they will always be up there.
“But for sure the key will be to be the most consistent and to not do a weekend maybe where you have a car that is able to win and a car that is able to finish last [the next one].
“But I think, as I said, they worked really hard. They understood where the issues were, so I’m very confident with them.”
Putting on muscle over the winter break
Ahead of the 2025 F2 season, Gabriele Minì explained how important it was to put on some extra muscle over the winter. Between the extra weight of the car, tyres, bigger aerodynamics, more powerful engines, extra G-Forces in the corners and under braking, it’s a big step up from F3.
“So yeah, as I said, I’ve been working really hard during the winter, even myself, with the training and new diets to try and improve. I gained a lot of [muscle] weight.
“But yeah, I find it a bit easier to now handle the car. Even, for example, the car is really heavy, we don’t have any power steering. So generally, it’s really heavy.
“Even to control an oversteer, it’s really heavy with all the aerodynamics. It just makes my life a lot easier, even with the braking, and to be consistent with everything.
“And I could really feel it already on the testing, which is something very positive.”
A driving style adjustment was required
The Italian also explained the big changes he made to his driving style following the step up to F2.
“Then the differences between F3 and F2, to be honest, also there I had to change quite a lot of my driving. As I said, I’ve been working, even my home sim, I changed all the settings and started working a lot on my driving, watching data, even myself. Then, of course, with the help of Prema during the sim days and the testings.
“And I had to change also that, because the car is really heavy. The tyres are much bigger with the 18-inch wheels, the aerodynamics are different and [F2 has] much more power.
“So, it’s quite a big difference, let’s say, even though the lap time is not too far away. We were talking about from three to, I don’t know, six seconds in some tracks.
“But still, the driving has to change a lot. So yeah, the biggest difference is, basically, the whole driving.”
Two rookie drivers should not be a problem for PREMA in the 2025 F2 season say Gabriele Minì
Gabriel Bortoleto, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc and George Russell have shown in recent years that rookies are more than capable of jumping into F2 and winning it in their rookie season. All four have graduated to F1.
The Brazilian makes his debut at Albert Park next weekend. Russell, Leclerc and Piastri are all multi-time winners now.
Mini is confident it will not be an issue for him or his teammate Sebastian Montoya, son of former F1 race winner, Juan Pablo.
“I mean, yeah, as Sebastian [Montoya] said, in the end, it’s true we are rookies. But I don’t think that’s a major issue, to be honest.
“Last year, I had the opportunity to race in Baku and to have Kimi as teammates. So it was a very good opportunity to learn a lot straight away in a short amount of time and pretty early on.
Data from previous years to help
“But at the same time, I don’t think it’s a big, big issue because we always have the data from previous years. We have really great engineers and personnel in the team that can teach us and can explain to us how everything has to be done.
“Then, of course, it’s up to us to put it on track as quickly as we can. But, I mean, we will see at the beginning of the first race once again.
“As Sebastian [Montoya] said, some people have more experience and some people have less. But I don’t think that’s a major issue.
“It will be maybe a bit more in the procedures, like, for example, in the starts. Of course, if you have two, three, four or five years in the car, it’s not the same as being your first time in front of the lights waiting for it to switch off and kind of do what you learn in a very little time instead of many years.
Not willing to make any championship predictions
Although Minì was very quick in pre-season testing, he is fully aware that other teams may not be showing their full hand until Melbourne next week.
“But yeah, in terms of positioning at the end of the championship, I don’t know, it’s really hard to say. We have been doing three days of testing.
“We don’t know what the other teams have been doing — we know we have worked hard, but we don’t know where the others are really.
“So we will have to wait and see. I can tell you at the end of the championship.”
