Prema

**Prema Powerteam,** who ran as **Prema Alfa Romeo** for sponsorship reasons, was an Italian racing team. Climbing from the regional series to world feeder series like Formula 2 and Formula 3 with major success, Prema moved to Formula Earth in 2021, serving as the feeder team of Ferrari. However, despite the support from the Italian giants, Prema experienced very turbulent years, marred by poor results, financial difficulties and contract disputes, which led eventually to its folding after the 2025 season. The assets were purchased by McLaren's eSports team McLaren Shadow Project, which led to the creation of the Shadow team that debuted in 2026.

## Origins

Prema Powerteam was founded in 1983 and started racing in various regional series, before making it worldwide in 2003 through various racing series, from regional to world racing series. The team focused in bringing and nurturing young prospects, with major successes in Formula 2 and Formula 3, most notably helping in the development of eventual star and Formula Earth legend Charles Leclerc. Following the restructuring of the pathway to the newly rebranded Formula Earth, Prema shut down its lower tier operations in order to enter the main series in 2021.

## 2021: A promising debut year

Prema entered in 2021 as Prema Alfa Romeo, becoming Ferrari's feeder team who moved to them after ending their support to Sauber, who ran as Alfa Romeo in 2020. The team signed the young Italian duo of Marco Aurelio and Kevin Buffon from Audi and Andretti. Aurelio had an impressive first year, scoring 2 points and beating Audi driver Nicholas Latifi and the Sauber duo of John Cida and Nico Hulkenberg. Buffon on the other hand failed to score points. Overall, Prema had a strong year, avoiding last place by beating Sauber and showing that they could become a solid feeder team in the future.

## 2022-2025: Turbulent times, financial problems and downfall

Aurelio and Buffon were retained for a second succesive year, but the team this time was worse than 2021, failing to even score a point. Also, Aurelio had raced 3 times for Ferrari as a replacement for the injured Antonio Giovinazzi, with fellow Italian Francesco Virgolini filling for him. In 2023, Aurelio was promoted to Ferrari, with the out of favour Giovinazzi being relegated to Prema. The former Ferrari reject scored the only 2 points of the team, and Buffon failed to score any points for a third succesive season and was ousted.

In 2024, Giovinazzi was kept by the team and Lithuanian prospect Saulius Sudzius was signed, despite being linked with Virgolini. The team endured a horrible year, failing to score points and being consistently off the pace. Also, Ferrari was losing faith with them and started decreasing support, with the team becoming increasingly unstable financially and even failing to pay driver's wages. Sudzius abandoned the team and Prema kept Giovinazzi and signed the declining Alexander Albon from Alpha Tauri. Albon scored 2 points and Giovinazzi 1, beating Audi for 11th, but behind the scenes the problems worsened. The team had failed to pay the driver's wages for months and Giovinazzi, who was the highest-paid driver of the team, sued the team over the unpaid wages and breaching contract rules. Ferrari decided then to cut their support completely, and Prema declared bankruptcy, having spent only 5 years in the sport. McLaren's eSports team McLaren Shadow Project bought the assets from Prema, creating the Shadow team, which functions as McLaren's feeder team and has seen moderate success in the recent years.

## Notable Drivers

* Marco Aurelio (2021-2022)
* Kevin Buffon (2021-2023)
* Francesco Virgolini (2022)
* Antonio Giovinazzi (2023-2025)
* Saulius Sudzius (2024)
* Alexander Albon (2025)