The secret of the F1 talent factory: How this Team Principal finds the stars of tomorrow

René Rosin does not let himself be tempted into making a statement that could easily have been the headline of this story. The Italian doesn't immediately mention Oscar Piastri or Charles Leclerc when this website asks him which of his protégés was the best? Diplomatic as Rosin is, he says: "Every year is different, every year has a new story, every year is a new challenge for all of us."

"So every of them has a particular part within our structure, within our environment, with our family, let's go like that. So it's quite difficult to judge which one is the best out of them, because for us every year has a different story that brought them to be everyone particular in our memories," Rosin explains.

Prema Racing has the greatest reputation in the paddock in terms of the teams that prepare drivers for the next step, with plenty of examples to show for it. For some reason, Rosin and his team manage to find talents every year who eventually break through to F1. Antonelli and Bearman are the latest examples, possibly followed by the current drivers Gabriele Mini and Sebastian Montoya.

"We try to keep our business model linked to what we are doing in previous series, so drivers that are growing up within us through the Formula 4, the regional, the Formula 3 and now at the end of Formula 2," explains Rosin on how he selects drivers for the feeder class to F1.

"So we tend to pre-select these type of drivers coming through us. Of course, there is some exception that can happen through the years, because one driver stops before, one driver decides to move for various reasons (like Arvid Lindblad last season, ed.)."

Nowadays, the biggest talents are already connected to an F1 academy at a young age. To have the best drivers, collaboration with the F1 teams is essential. Currently, Prema has such a partnership with Alpine, where Mini is part of the junior team.

Yet Rosin says: "But to be totally fair, being in an academy and not being in an academy, for us, there is not a real difference in the way we're working. We want to work with the drivers to extract from him the best performance as possible"

"Of course, the academy is giving input, the academy is giving suggestions, the academy sometimes puts in pressure, but this is part of the game. And when you are in Formula 2, you need to fight the pressure, you need to fight, you need to be competitive if you want to go to Formula 1, so it's part of the game," concludes Rosin.