‘We are incredibly proud’ – Rene Rosin on PREMA’s 2024 Teams’ title and Monza finale

PREMA Racing’s hold of the FIA Formula 3 Teams’ Championship continues as they sealed their fifth title in six seasons at Spa-Francorchamps this past weekend.

After taking a one-two finish in the Sprint Race, led by Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì, the Venetian outfit knew that unless ART Grand Prix outscored them by 27 points in the Feature, they would be Champions.

In the end both teams did not score any points, and while Team Principal Rene Rosin was not pleased by that, he was delighted to see PREMA retain their title.

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“For sure it's a great result,” he said. “Of course it didn't arrive with a good result today, the race was not quite clean, with a lot of Safety Cars, but I think we could have done a better job without the contact at T1 with Gabriele and Oliver Goethe or Arvid Lindblad with Christian Mansell.

“It's a big team effort for sure. I think it's something that we are really proud of, winning another Teams' Championship because it’s a tradition for us having raced for a long time now in the Championship.

“We started in 1983 in Formula 3, so it has been our business for a long, long time. So, it's always been good to be fighting at the top and in every year, we have been able to achieve that in the best way possible. I'm really happy and the team is always pushing for these results.”

In a year in which 11 drivers have won races, while 27 have scored points and each team has achieved a podium finish, Rosin acknowledges the level of competition currently in Formula 3.

For Rosin, this makes him even prouder, not only of the people he currently works with but even those that have previously left PREMA as they have all played a part in pushing the team forward.

“Considering that this is the sixth year of the car, it is more or less becoming normal for everybody,” he explained. “So, all the teams are very much close to each other, and there is a lot of competition through to the end of the year.

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“So, this pushes us to do something more. But of course, we want to win, we are in a highly competitive environment, so we push all the time to do the best job possible.

“From my point of view it is really a big team effort, everybody is trying always to do something better, trying to be better than others in terms of car preparation, better than others in every single detail.

“I am really happy about every single person who has passed through us in these six years because there have been some changes, some novelties but I am really happy that everybody every time they join us, they always try to maximise the best way possible and try to do the best job possible.

“The Teams’ Championship is really a team result because it’s the three drivers, all the engineers, all the mechanics that at the end have brought them to this result. All the credit goes to them for all the fantastic job that they always have done.”

The season is not over though for PREMA as all three of their drivers are in with a chance of securing the Drivers' Championship. Minì is second on 128 points, a point behind leader Leonardo Fornaroli, while Arvid Lindblad is fourth on 113, with Beganovic fifth on 100.

All three have a shot at glory in Monza, and Rosin says their attentions will turn to that immediately as they look to give their drivers the best chances possible to win the title.

“There will be a couple weeks break for everybody, but all our concentration will be on Monza to get back on the pace we know we can,” said Rosin.

“All the drivers have got a bit of good and bad moments, but I think at the moment we just need to concentrate all our effort on doing the best job possible for Monza. It's starting the ball in the centre as they say in football, and it starts from zero.

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“It will be a Championship to be proud of because having the top five drivers split by 29 points is really nothing. Gabriele being P2, one point from the leader, it's nearly equal. So, we need to put everything into getting every single point, every single moment, and doing the best job possible.

PREMA are the only team to have all three of their drivers in with a chance of winning at Monza. It was a similar story last season when Zak O’Sullivan, Paul Aron and Beganovic all finished in the top six.

In 2022, their three drivers Oliver Bearman, Arthur Leclerc and Jak Crawford all went into the season finale with a chance of winning the title.

In 2020, Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Frederik Vesti took up three spots in the top four, while in 2019, Robert Shwartzman, Marcus Armstrong and Jehan Daruvala completed a PREMA one-two-three.

For Rosin, this is something he wants, saying “we always try to get the strongest line-up possible”, believing that it is important to have “three drivers fighting each other”.

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Expect this to be the plan once more for next season, as Rosin admits planning for 2025 is already underway. He acknowledges this is part of the job, although it does not leave much room for celebration.

“This is the downside because you don’t have time,” he added. “We still need to finish 2024, because we have a championship coming up in Monza that will be decided in one shot so this is something that will take us a lot of energy, a lot of preparation, and you need to be on top of everything.

“At the same time, we are in the middle of negotiations for 2025, discussing with partners, drivers, academies and so on to do the best job as possible. So, this is a big downside because you cannot celebrate what you've done, the great job that everybody has done but this is part of our job and it's part of our world.

“There is nothing we can do, we can just sit down for a day, enjoy a drink with everybody and tomorrow we move on to the next target.”