Oliver Bearman is drawing some seriously valuable lessons from his 2024 Formula 2 season alongside now-F1 champion-elect Kimi Antonelli at PREMA. The pair had completely different expectations heading into that campaign, assuming they'd be battling for the title in what was supposed to be one of F2's top teams. Instead, they quickly realized PREMA had massively struggled to adapt to the new 2024 car, leaving both drivers well off the pace.

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Bearman and Antonelli had actually crossed paths before their F2 teammate years. The British driver won the Italian F4 Championship back in 2021 by over 100 points when Antonelli joined late in the season. Then they came together as teammates in F2, where they initially expected to fight each other for wins every weekend. That rivalry never materialized because they were too busy trying to make the season work at all.

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What Bearman reckons has helped him most is learning how to operate effectively when you're not in a championship-winning car. He's told The Athletic that experience is proving invaluable now at Haas, where he's struggling to score points consistently despite banking three wins in that difficult F2 campaign. Antonelli took sixth in the standings that year while Bearman finished twelfth, but the mental resilience they built together is something Bearman's carrying with him into his current F1 challenge.

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The contrast in their trajectories since has been pretty stark. Antonelli, backed by Mercedes, went straight up through the junior categories and is now leading the championship in his second F1 season. Bearman, loaned to Haas by Ferrari after his own F1 debut, is having a tougher time adjusting to life outside a top team. But he's genuinely crediting that difficult F2 year for putting him in a better headspace to handle the current situation and keep pushing forward.

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