PREMA Racing driver Sebastian Montoya impressed in his Formula 2 debut in Australia. In the first sprint race of his rookie season, he managed to get into the points after qualifying in P11. The Colombian driver will be looking to score more points at the next round at the Bahrain GP round this weekend.
Ahead of the Bahrain GP, Montoya spoke to the media, including Pit Debrief, about the upcoming weekend.
Montoya feeling at home at PREMA
With last year’s PREMA Racing drivers Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman now graduated to Formula 1, PREMA needed a completely fresh lineup. They opted for an all-rookie line-up.
Ahead of the second round of the 2025 F2 season at the Bahrain GP, Montoya was asked about how he is settling in at PREMA after scoring his first points. Montoya explained the unique challenges of entering a new team alongside a fellow rookie and discussed his relationship with teammate Gabriele Minì as they fight for the championship with their team.
“It’s quite difficult when you have two rookies going in because there’s no one from, for example, last year or the year before to kind of back up everything that’s going on.
As the team’s working on the car, us drivers are learning as well step by step. Gabi and I have done a good job in the pre-season and the end of last season to kind of push each other to get better.”
Though in his rookie season, Montoya is no stranger to the PREMA Racing family. He competed with the team from 2020 to 2022. He then went on to race for Hitech and Campos Racing, before making his return to PREMA for his rookie F2 season.
When asked about how he feels integrating into a new team, Montoya shared how he actually felt comfortable at PREMA due to his familiarity there.
“Obviously, Gabi jumped with the team from F3, so he’s kind of more used to it than I am. I went to Hitech and then Campos, so obviously for me, it was coming back home in a way. It’s been really good.”
Points on F2 debut in Australia
Montoya impressed in the first round of the 2025 season. In his debut qualifying session, he finished just outside of the top ten. During the sprint race, he moved up the field and defended well. He crossed the line in sixth place and earned points in his F2 sprint race debut.
He also managed to finish the sprint race one position ahead of his teammate, Gabriele Minì. His PREMA Racing teammate impressed in qualifying, setting the fastest lap despite later receiving a three-place grid penalty for impeding.
Ahead of the Bahrain GP round, Montoya reflected on his weekend in Australia.
“I’m actually quite happy with the pace overall. I think in Australia, we had really good potential. The car was in a really good spot.
In FP we were very competitive. I wasn’t able to, let’s say, fully adapt to the conditions that were presented to me in qualifying in Australia. Just because, as Alex [Dunne] said, there was a lot of red flags. I never got to push sector three.
So let’s just say that it was a bit up and down. But overall I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made, not only in myself but also as a driver.”
Montoya went on to share his approach to his rookie season, particularly his mindset and behind-the-scenes changes.
“I’ve changed a lot of things.
This year, I have a physio for the first time, which is now my trainer as well. We’ve tried to change everything, the most we have. I think it’s the first year I’ve been able to do the most testing before the start of the season.”
Formula 2 returns to testing location for Bahrain GP round
This weekend, Formula 2 will head to Bahrain for its second round of the season. This track will be familiar to all the drivers, as this is where in-season testing was held only a few weeks ago. During the F2 in-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit, Montoya completed 181 laps. This could with valuable for him as he tackles the upcoming race weekend.
Montoya responded to a question from Pit Debrief about the importance of the testing in Bahrain for success at this weekend’s GP round.
He responded by talking about how he is glad to have experience with such a wide variety of conditions so early into the season.
“It’s just kind of getting up to speed still. In some situations, as a rookie, obviously you haven’t really experienced before which you can experience in testing, and Barcelona because it was so cold. There’s a lot of things that you didn’t really experience.
The different conditions here in Bahrain made it quite nice and especially because the session one is at the hottest point of the day, and then the other is at night and the track is much quicker.
The difference in grip is also quite a lot, so I think as a driver being able to experience that and then going into the season knowing everything that you learned in testing helps quite a lot.”
Montoya keen to gain as much F2 experience as possible
Montoya’s desire to get as wide a variety of experience as possible in F2 was also evident in his response to a later question regarding the possible introduction of a new street track in Madrid that may replace the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
“If you look at Australia, the people that were at the front, most of them were second, third, fourth-year guys like Martins or Verschoor, for example. They’re guys that have been racing F2 for quite a while.”
“So going to a new track, it opens the doors to the rookies. I think the rookies this year have been able to get up to speed quite quickly even at the end of last year.”
“I think for the rookies, the harder it is at the beginning in one way, the more you learn as well. So it just better prepares you for the rest of the season.”
