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Halfway through the 2023 Formula 2 season, PREMA Racing’s Frederik Vesti leads the standings.
Vesti celebrates after winning the 2023 Formula 2 Feature Race in Monaco (Image Credit: Dan Mullan – Getty Images)Vesti joined Formula 2 in 2022 for his rookie season with ART Grand Prix. Five podiums (one of those a Sprint Race win) later, he finished ninth in the standings.
Speaking to Formula 2, Vesti believes he’s come a long way from his rookie season to now be leading the championship.
“I think it’s an evolution of last year,” the Danish driver commented. “I think it was pretty clear last year that my season started out very bad and then, with time, it just became better and better and around the summertime, I was one of the top scoring guys in the Championship. I was just so far back in the points that I could not do a good job in the Championship.
“This year, obviously we had a bad start in Bahrain with no points but then we have sort of been at the level we need to be and roughly where I want to be. Obviously, we still need to improve things but I don’t think it’s a different mindset, it’s an evolution.
“I haven’t been quite where I want to be in Qualifying. Taking pole positions and starting near the front helps in the Feature Race to score more points. I think that it’s been really good and just shows how strong we are in the races.
“We were definitely expecting to be at the top and that’s why it’s great to know that we’re here even though we haven’t had a clean season so far. So to be this well placed in the Championship already is a really good thing.”
Already this season, Vesti has won three races, two of them being the Feature Races in Jeddah and Monaco. He is now just 11 points ahead in the standings of his former ART Grand Prix teammate Theo Pourchaire. Part of the credit for his performance, according to Vesti, goes to his current team.
Coming home to PREMA
After his rookie season in Formula 2, the Danish driver moved to PREMA Racing. Despite making the change, it was a familiar environment for Vesti, who previously raced with the team in Formula Regional and in Formula 3.
Vesti celebrates with a PREMA team member after his first Formula 2 Feature Race win in Jeddah (Image Credit: Dan Istitene – Getty Images)“It was a conscious move coming back to PREMA,” said Vesti. “There’s no doubt that my last season with them in F3 in 2020 was very strong, fighting for the Championship with Oscar and Logan and that was for sure very good.
“Then the change to ART, I think it taught me a lot and I’ve definitely become a better driver after working my way with the team, but then coming back to PREMA just feels like home. I still have my engineer from F3, Pedro [Matos], it just means that for example, when I struggle with things, he can quickly react and help me in the right direction. And that’s the support I need to succeed in Formula 2.
“It helps because when you’re consistently struggling a little bit to make the top 10 or something like that, it’s always in the back of your mind, you feel that pressure. So doing more consistently good results puts you in a better mood and just reminds you of the good things you have achieved in the past few weeks or months. So it definitely helps for the confidence and that carries over into the feeling you have in the car.”
Confidence in team and self
Working with a team you love can be the confidence boost a driver needs, and certainly Vesti can attest to that fact.
“With PREMA, it’s really good,” he commented. “It’s good people, like friends, we love to spend time all together, if it’s in the factory, on the simulator, the restaurant, playing tennis, it’s just easy to be around. It’s people that you really want to be with, and I think it just helps as a whole – the team environment. Then when you’re doing well like we have done in the last few race weekends, it makes it an even better environment to be in.”
Moving forward, Vesti and the rest of the Formula 2 drivers have a busy month coming up in July. After having a month off, they’ll have to push through four race weekends in one month. But fortunately, the four tracks they’ll be racing at, Spielberg, Silverstone, Hungary, and Spa-Francorchamps, are some of the drivers’ favourite to compete at.
“This is my favourite part of the season,” said Vesti. “These are tracks I’ve driven for many years. I have a lot of confidence in the team and myself and I’m just focused on taking one small step at a time every single day. I think together, we have as a team gotten pointed into the direction we need to go and now it’s just making sure we do those steps every single day.”
Feature Image Credit: @PREMA_Team on Twitter