Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Frederik Vesti proved himself as a strong championship leader for a big part of the 2023 F2 season. However, he now heads to the Abu Dhabi finale with a large points deficit that will be difficult to overcome
Recent rounds have put a twist in Frederik Vesti’s Formula 2 title aspirations, but the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior still assesses the season positively, and he described it as the “best in my career” performance-wise in conversation with Formula Scout last time out at Monza.
At Prema, Vesti feels at home, and that has boosted his chances on-track. Both driver and team fully trust each other, which has led to a significant step in performance compared to his rookie F2 season with ART Grand Prix. In 2022, the highs were really high, but the lows were too many and too low for someone who aims to reach F1. That has changed in his sophomore season, reuniting with an Italian squad he knows well and highly regarded race engineer Pedro Matos. The Portuguese had steered him to the Formula Regional European title in 2019 and guided him in his maiden FIA Formula 3 season the following year, and this year Vesti has repeatedly praised his contributuions to his on-track performance.
“F2 is the class just under F1. It’s the best junior drivers in the world fighting against each other to find a F1 seat, which also means that the level is incredibly high and it’s the smallest margins that make the difference. So being with a team [like Prema] and an engineer like Pedro really means everything because it’s the small things in every day that make the difference: working in the sim, how we approach the mental game on track, during qualifying, if I’m not perfect in my driving or mentality, how he can help me in the right direction.
“This way is such a powerful thing, and if you’re missing this in your engineer, you have to do even better yourself. So definitely, Prema and Pedro are helping me find the sweet spot more often.”
Vesti acknowledged that a much better communication with his current team has played a key role to this year’s results. Opening up on the weaknesses to properly address them has been vital to taking on a title attack.
“The communication is a lot,” he stated. “F2 is a mental game at the end of the day, how you approach each session and how you develop throughout the season as well. With Pedro and Prema, I’m always improving, there’s always something new to discover and learn, and when you are consistently improving, you also put yourself in a very good position to do good results.
“So the communication, it’s very difficult because you need to leave yourself in a difficult situation sometimes talking in a very honest way. But at the end of the day, that’s what makes the difference.”
“It’s a journey where you have to learn always, and I think last year had glimpses of potential and had great moments as well,” he then followed on why a tough rookie season had been useful to improving himself.
“Generally it was a difficult year where I had to look at how I do things and how I tried to improve, and that’s mainly a mental thing, and how I set myself up finding the right rhythm every single race weekend. [Last year] I could do a good race weekend, but the next race weekend could be bad, so it was a lot up and down, whereas this year has been a lot more consistent, which is vital in F2. What has changed? Not much, but just consistently improving every single week is the difference.”
His team-mate Ollie Bearman has beaten him in 11 out of 23 races this year, since Vesti missed the Spa-Francorchamps feature race, and there is a gap of 36 points between them. Vesti has found having the rookie in the team beneficial.
“This year, what has also helped me and Prema as well is that when I’ve had a bad weekend, maybe a bad qualifying where Ollie has been well placed, we’ve been able to validate the car set-up, validate what I need to improve,” he said.
“That has been really good. So the days I was on fire, I was always in the top three, but the days it was a bit more difficult, typically, Ollie would deliver a good lap, and that just helps to keep focused on the right things and keep improving both the driving style, the mentality and so on.”
The season did not kick off well at Bahrain, where Prema struggled with tyre management and degradation. However, that was a one-off and both Vesti and Bearman went on to show blistering speed from thereon. It soon became clear that Prema and ART GP were the only two teams to be fast at every track and in every condition, which has paved the way for a thrilling title fight. Vesti and ART GP’s Theo Pourchaire have fought for the crown, meanwhile their rookie team-mates Bearman and Victor Martins have already both proven capable of winning races.
Vesti first topped the standings 10 races into the season when he won the Monaco feature race from pole. Then being in the position of the chased rather than the chaser, the Dane adapted his approach to manage the risks every race weekend and, despite his car’s strong pace, never took the advantage over most of the field for granted. However, a mistake en route to the grid at Spa, which resulted in him not even taking the start, changed it all. As a consequence, he lost the championship lead.
It wouldn’t have been much of a problem had he been able to bounce back after the summer break at Zandvoort, but he didn’t. In fact, he spun on his own at the start of the feature race there to make his life even more difficult, then both rear wheels detached from his car after the pitstop resulted in another retirement and, therefore, not being able to capitalise on title rival Pourchaire’s own points-free weekend.
“Honestly, the last rounds at Spa and Zandvoort were very, very difficult,” Vesti admitted. “At some point, you have to set yourself off for the weekend, but sometimes when you have bad results like that, it’s difficult. Because good results have a snowball effect momentum, it just gets almost easier and easier, the more good results you have. But it’s also a similar effect when it’s going badly. So arriving to Monza, for example, after two bad weekends is never an easy thing, but that’s where I’m in good hands with the team, my own personal team around me as well. So I need to focus and look ahead.
“I can only say I’m really proud of the season we have done. There will always be things you can do better, everyone will say that, and obviously some weekends are better than others. But in general looking at this year so far, it’s been an incredible year that I think in terms of performance has been my best in my career.
Photo: Prema
“This is such a difficult championship, and it is the best junior drivers ready to go to F1, so to be fighting for the title is something that is very big for me. I don’t really look too much back. What has happened during this season is all a part of the journey and sometimes when you go to the limit and try to extract the maximum, you exceed the limit. So I’m happy and just looking forward to finish the year strong,” he said on Saturday evening at Monza.
The victory in the sprint race at the Temple of Speed was a silver lining. Nine points down with three races to go, Vesti switched his mindset to “full send” mode.
Pourchaire started Sunday’s feature race from pole, and Vesti lined up in eighth. Out of the first chicane he was up to fifth and ready to gain more positions, but the positive momentum didn’t last long. Roman Stanek had a slow exit of the della roggia chicane and Vesti tried to overtake him on the inside. However, the Trident driver wasn’t willing to give up the place and squeezed Vesti to the grass, where he lost control of his car and crashed out.
Pourchaire went on to finish third, extending his championship lead to 25 points ahead of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi season finale and leaving Vesti in a difficult position in every sense despite 39 points still to play for. In the title fight, it is unlikely that Vesti will be able to overcome such a deficit unless something disastrous happens to his rival.
Regarding his future, had he been leading the standings right now or at least with a better chance of taking the title, Vesti could have become a contender for the second seat at Williams in F1 next year after a spell in which the team’s current driver Logan Sargent was under thorough scrutiny.
At this point, doors that have a race seat at the top level behind them don’t seem to be opening for the 21-year-old, who will have to content himself with featuring in the opening practice session of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and in the young driver test the week after with Mercedes. But as F2 title contenders of the past can attest to, sometimes it’s those opportunities to get F1 mileage that have a bigger impact on determining a driver’s future than how their F2 campaign ended.