Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

At the British GP, Roy Nissany became the most experienced driver ever in the second tier of single-seater racing. He is yet to get a taste of racing at the top level, but did other F2 long-timers make the step up?

Formula Scout went through the history of second-tier series across the globe, considering the evolutions of series like European Formula 2 which turned into International Formula 3000 and was later replaced by GP2 (which rebranded to F2 six years ago), the USAC Mini-Indy Series which is now known as Indy Nxt, non-championship bouts across the globe contested by the stars and teams of Formula 1’s main feeder series, and many more championships.

With results from the 1960s and 1970s proving hard to verify via online research, old magazines needed to be consulted for certain races to find out who were the entrants who made the start and were either outside the points-scoring positions or retired. Equally, mentions of non-starters were key for making sure there were accurate lists from that period.

Then there was the tricky situation of Japan. Super Formula now sits alongside F1, IndyCar and Formula E at the top level of single-seater racing. But it used second-tier machinery until an overhaul for 1996 turned it into Formula Nippon. While it is an easy distinction to make that every race prior to then counted towards a driver’s second-tier CV, the conundrum of the 1996 campaign was that only one chassis was built to FNippon’s regulations, and the rest were F3000 cars running Japanese engines and with modified bodywork. In today’s terms, an F2 car with different aesthetics (note Brad Pitt’s upcoming F1 movie) does not turn it into a top-tier single-seater car. But if it’s entered into a top-tier series, surely the driver at the wheel has contested a top-tier race…

We’ll revisit that argument again later down this list, which looks at the 10 most experienced drivers in the second tier:

=9. Fairuz Fauzy MALAYSIA 133 races
GP2 (62 races): 5pts   GP2 Asia (14 races): 1 win, 3 podiums, 25pts   FR3.5 (57 races): 1 win, 2 poles, 10 podiums, 181pts   Top tier A1GP (22 races): 1 win, 2 podiums, 57pts

Photo: GP2 Media Service

After the Malaysian Grand Prix’s induction on the F1 calendar in 1999, it was only a few months before a Malaysian driver reached the pinnacle of single-seaters. Alex Yoong made it into SF, F1 and CART in the early 2000s, and Malaysian investment remained in F1 through the next decade, helping more drivers from his country embark on international racing careers.

Fauzy was the next big hope for the nation in open-wheel cars, although his results in Britain’s Formula Ford, Formula Renault and Formula 3 championships did little to suggest he would one day race in F1.

But when he arrived in GP2 in 2005 with a turquoise car sponsored by Malaysian petroleum company Petronas, who supplied fuel to the Sauber F1 team, it was clear he had the backing to make it to the top.

His rookie GP2 season with DAMS was lacklustre, with four top-10 results but no points under the sporting regulations of the time, but the week before the season finale he was already making his top-level debut as he represented Malaysia in the new nation-based A1GP series. He would be called up again by A1 Team Malaysia three years later, and won the 2008-09 season opener in treachorous conditions at Zandvoort. In the next race he was second, and finished third at Algarve.

Such results initially proved harder to come by back in the second-tier series. A points-free GP2 season in 2006 was followed by a Formula Renault 3.5 campaign in 2007 where he got a pole and three podiums but could only score seven times.

At the start of 2008 he joined the new GP2 Asia series, and won in treacherous conditions at Sentul. This time it wasn’t rain, but rather the track literally falling apart and cars driving through dust clouds (which led to overheating engines). A return to FR3.5 beckoned after that, and remarkably Fauzy came second in the 2009 standings with a win and four other podiums.

That and his A1GP form made for perfect timing as the Malaysian-owned Team Lotus joined the F1 grid in 2010 and he was signed as its reserve driver. But they released him from his contract at the end of the year and Fauzy returned to GP2 and FR3.5 for 2011. One podium from 32 races that year was not enough to keep him on the single-seater map.

=9. Luca Ghiotto ITALY 133 races
FR3.5 (17 races): 26pts   GP2 (22 races): 1 win, 4 podiums, 111pts   F2 (94 races): 6 wins, 2 poles, 24 podiums, 609pts

Photo: Carl Bingham / LAT Images

Ghiotto put his name on the map by winning on the iconic Pau street circuit in FR2.0 in 2013, and from there he stepped up to FR3.5 where his name swiftly disappeared from the map as he came 17th in the standings with three points finishes.

So Ghiotto stepped down to the third tier of single-seaters in GP3 and made an immediate impact with pole on debut. His full season in the series resulted in five wins and second in the standings, so when he returned to the second tier in GP2 for 2016 there were raised expectations once again.

His first season with Trident went arguably as well as it could with a team often mired in the midfield, as Ghiotto was a regular scorer in the feature races but usually only a podium contender in the reversed-grid sprint races. His first win in one of those came in the penultimate round at Sepang.

Ghiotto became super consistent in his second season with Russian Time, only twice in 22 races finishing outside of the top eight and scoring in more races than anyone else. But with a single sprint race win and six other podiums he could do no better than a distant fourth in the standings.

Russian Time did win the teams’ title, but Ghiotto then moved on to Campos Racing (who had been ninth in the teams’ standings) for the 2018 F2 season and he could only muster three podiums from the year. His next team switch was more canny, joining the debuting Virtuosi Racing and kicking off their partnership with a pole and a win at Bahrain.

Three more wins and four second places followed and Ghiotto fought for the title. He now had nothing more to prove in F2, but also no money to go to F1. So Hitech GP, another debuting team in F2, called upon his services for 2020.

Ghiotto reckoned the team had “twice as much work” to do as others and later expressed regrets about staying in GP2/F2 for a fifth year, despite winning in his fifth race with the team. But it was his lowest-scoring season yet and left him in no better career position than he was at the end of 2019. A cameo with DAMS at Monza last year brought Ghiotto up to 133 starts.

8. Johnny Cecotto Jr VENEZUELA 137 races
GP2 (117 races): 4 wins, 3 poles, 10 podiums, 306pts   GP2 Asia (6 races): 3pts   FV8 3.5 (6 races): 1 win, 1 podium, 42pts   F2 (8 races): 1 podium, 16pts

The son of the 1975 350cc motorcycling world champion, F1 driver and DTM star of the same name, Cecotto – like Fauzy – was somewhat of a state-funded talent as shown by the rear wing in the above picture.

Although he was driving second-tier machinery in just his second year of car racing, it was previous-generation F3000 machinery in the Euroseries 3000 series that had been inherited the cars made redundant by GP2’s creation.

In total he made four starts there before his career in contemporary second-tier single-seaters began with the final two GP2 rounds of 2009. He also did the GP2 Asia season opener in November with Trident, and stayed with the team for a full GP2 season. Cecotto was inconsistent and only scored once, a fourth place in the Monaco sprint race. A sign of things to come.

In 2011 he went points-free in GP2 and GP2 Asia, then a move to reigning champion team Addax for 2012 resulted in being mired in the midfield once again until he rocked up to Monaco and claimed pole position. He converted it into victory in the feature race, but then spun and caused a multi-car pile-up on lap one of the sprint race. Cecotto had a reputation for being a driver as likely to cause chaos as he was to get a strong result, and the Monaco weekend was the epitome of that.

Next time out in Valencia he had a nightmare weekend, but then he turned up to Silverstone and qualified and finished second. Following that was Hockenheim, where he could only qualify 18th but then used local knowledge to choose slick tyres on a wet track in the feature race. He assumed the lead when everyone else chose to pit, then made his own compulsory pitstop and won by nine seconds.

The rest of Cecotto’s GP2 career followed a similar pattern, and it was hard to tell over that time if he improved as a driver. He claimed Monaco pole again in 2013, and duly crashed out on lap one of the feature race. Even worse, stewards punished him for the incident by barring him from entering the sprint race.

That podium-free season was followed by his most competitive one in 2014. At Barcelona he could only qualify 16th, but was seventh after a chaotic opening lap of the feature race. He led by lap eight, and it only took two laps following his pitstop to return to the front and take a convincing win. At the Red Bull Ring he took pole and won the sprint race, and three further podiums put him fifth in the standings.

Cecotto drove for four teams over the next two years in part-time campaigns, and won in Formula V8 3.5 in 2016 as the RP Motorsport team sought to use his experience. Once he had proved they had a winning package, he was out of the door.

His time in the second tier ended with three rounds in F2 in 2017 before he was replaced by the next man on this list.

7. Sergio Canamasas SPAIN 138 races
FR3.5 (33 races): 1 pole, 1 podium, 69pts   GP2 (91 races): 2 podiums, 76pts   F2 (14 races): 21pts

Photo: Alastair Staley / GP2 Media Service

Like many Spanish drivers in the 2000s, Canamasas went straight into his national F3 championship for his first year in single-seaters. After three seasons and three podiums, he then stepped up to FR3.5 in 2010 with Interwetten Racing.

The team lacked performance, and so did Canamasas, with a best finish of 14th in his rookie season. A switch to the BVM-Target alliance for 2011 produced significantly better results, with a pole and a podium coming at the Hungaroring. Consistent scoring meant Canamasas finished eighth in the standings, behind a roster of future racing superstars.

But it wasn’t until Canamasas’s fifth year in GP2 that his total points tally in the series surpassed what he scored in a single year in FR3.5. It was a 27-race wait for Canamasas to score his first GP2 point – he managed to get excluded from a qualifying session before that for deliberately forcing a driver off-track – but nine races later he was on the podium.

In an impressive weekend in Monaco in 2014, Canamasas used an undercut strategy to rise from 12th to fifth in the feature race and in the sprint race he jumped from fourth to second at the start and then held his position to the end of the race. Through the rest of the season, Canamasas scored twice and got disqualified once for dangerous driving and causing collisions.

In the Monza sprint race he had a lap one collision with Adrian Quaife-Hobbs by cutting the Ascari chicane, and that led to two other cars colliding at almost 200mph. He later collided with Rene Binder and Raffaele Marciello, in consecutive corners no less, before getting shown the black flag.

Canamasas went through three different teams in 2015, but he got another Monaco podium from ninth on the grid in the feature race – thanks to a rival being penalised – and followed that up with a fourth place. At the next round an apparent dispute between himself and MP Motorsport meant he didn’t take to track and then he lost his seat with the team.

He found berths at Team Lazarus and Hilmer Motorsport for the rest of the season, and managed to score points once. In 2016 he stayed with one team, but lost his Carlin seat for one round. Canamasas rounded off his time in the series with an incomplete 2017 campaign where he switched teams after four rounds. Impressive longevity.

6. Artem Markelov RUSSIA 141 races
GP2 (66 races): 1 win, 3 podiums, 151pts   F2 (75 races): 8 wins, 14 podium, 417pts   Top tier Super Formula (5 races)

Photo: FIA Formula 2

In stark contrast to Canamasas’s route around the paddock, Markelov’s first 100 starts in GP2/F2 were all with the same team.

The Russian Time outfit that Markelov became synonymous was established with the engineering support of German team Motopark, which Markelov had driven for through his first three years of car racing in ADAC Formel Masters and German F3, but by the time he reached GP2 in 2014 the operation was actually being run by iSport International, and later by Virtuosi.

It took a while however for Markelov to get up to speed in GP2, scoring once in his rookie year, but he slowly and steadily improved as he gained more experience and built a reputation of being a clever strategist with good tyre management skills.

The first podium arrived in his sophomore season, then the first win – a feature race success in Monaco – coming in year three. His fourth campaign was his most complete, kicking 2017 off with victory at Bahrain that required a perfectly executed one-stop strategy. He won four more times that year and was championship runner-up to Charles Leclerc.

Markelov was very much like the Sergio Perez of GP2/F2, and although he won three times in 2018 in the new F2 car and became a Renault F1 test driver, his peak had already happened and he needed to find another series to show off his talents.

That opportunity came in Super Formula in 2019, but he struggled to leave an impact and instead became one of the go-to substitutes in F1’s primary feeder series. He got called up for three rounds that year, then made a full-time F2 return in 2020 as the debuting HWA Racelab team sought to utilise his experience. He only scored twice that year, and hasn’t appeared since.

=4. Kunimitsu Takahashi JAPAN 142 races
Japanese F2000 (13 races): 3 wins, 1 pole, 8 podiums, 139 points   Japanese F2 (58 races): 1 win, 5 podiums, 236 points   Japanese F3000 (71 races): 4 podiums, 59pts   Top tier: F1 (1 race)

Photo: Minoru Kobayashi

Takahashi made his first appearance in single-seaters’ second-tier with a single race in Japanese Formula 2000 in 1975.

He made four starts in 1976, earning his first podium and points, then in ’77 was championship runner-up as he won three times and only missed out on the podium once in eight races. Takahashi actually scored more points than anyone else, but the regulations included dropped scores and his supreme podium-finishing consistency actually cost him the title.

The series switched to using F2 cars in 1978, and Takahashi took what would be his last win in the season finale. The next year he could only make the podium twice, then he endured three podium-free seasons.

In 1983 he returned to form with two podiums, but then went on another three-year run of failing to get a top-three finish.

Takahashi remained on the grid when the next big shift came as the series adopted F3000 cars, but over the next eight cars only got four more podiums. In 1991, now a remarkable 51 years old, he failed to qualify twice and he went three seasons without scoring a single point.

But in 1994 he bowed out in style with two eighth places and then a podium. That season he raced against a driver who was just one year old when he made his series debut.

=4. Julian Leal COLOMBIA 142 races
FR3.5 (34 races): 1 podium, 22pts   GP2 (102 races): 4 podiums, 177pts   GP2 Asia (4 races)   GP2 Final (2 races)

Photo: Julianlealweb

Leal had plentiful experience of old F3000 cars by the time he debuted in FR3.5 in 2009, and aside from a podium at the Hungaroring his average finishing position that year was 17.9. And that was with Prema, a team now known for dominating junior single-seaters.

His second season resulted in the same number of points, 11, but collected in three different races. Once again his season was mostly populated by low finishing positions or retirements.

For 2011 he made the sideways step to GP2, and remained in the series for close to five seasons. He made his debut in the Dallara GP2/11 in the two-round GP2 Asia series, with a best finish of 17th, then in the main series got two top-10 finishes in his first year but scored no points as both were in sprint races.

It took 36 races in the car before Leal broke his points-scoring duck, and despite scoring nine points in 2012 he still finished outside of the top 20 in the standings.

The next year he moved to Racing Engineering, and Leal did get two sprint race podiums. But the team was far more competitive than that, shown by team-mate Fabio Leimer scoring three times as many points and winning the title.

Eager to still prove himself, Leal signed with Carlin for 2014 and he made the podium in each of the first two races. He sat second in the standings after four races, but then only scored four times in the remaining 18 races and dropped to 10th in the standings. Team-mate Felipe Nasr scored more than three times as many points as him.

Leal remained with Carlin for 2015, but after reaching 100 races in the main GP2 series he announced his ‘retirement’ from it and missed the last three rounds of the season.

=2. Davide Valsecchi ITALY 161 races
FR3.5 (32 races): 1 win, 4 podiums, 80pts   GP2 Asia (33 races): 4 wins, 1 pole, 11 podiums, 116pts   GP2 (96 races): 7 wins, 3 poles, 17 podiums, 331pts

Photo: GP2 Media Service

A champion, at last! And more than that, a double champion! Valsecchi was never consistently a frontrunner in GP2, but he managed to win two titles.

Two years in FR3.5, with the return of a win and three other podiums, preceded Valsecchi’s five years in GP2 where he started every single race run using the series’ cars in that time period.

He started off in Durango, contesting the Asian and the main series in 2008 and ending the year with victory on home soil in the Monza sprint race. A win and three other podiums in GP2 Asia over the winter made the combination a dark horse for 2009, but ultimately Durango was not competitive enough and Valsecchi only scored three times, but did get a podium.

As soon as the season ended he moved to iSport, and he dominated the Asian series. Victory, two second places and then another two wins in the first five races all but secured him the title with three races to go, and he scored almost twice as many points as the championship runner-up. But once again that form didn’t quite translate into the main series.

He got a pole and a win on the series’ two Asian tracks, but was not a victory threat on any of the European circuits. His first feature race win in the main series came after 59 starts, and was a standout moment from a 2011 season spent with a debuting AirAsia team that was mostly learning rather than performing.

Finally it all came good for Valsecchi when he moved to DAMS in 2012. They had mastered the Dallara GP2/11 in its first year of use, and so started the season as the team to beat. Valsecchi delivered, taking three wins and a second place in the first five races on his favoured tracks in Asia, then once everyone caught up to DAMS’ pace in Europe he had a points lead to control.

He went from having a 37-point margin to falling behind Luiz Razia mid-season, and only regained the lead at the penultimate round. Valsecchi still became champion by a handy 25 points.

=2. Kazuyoshi Hoshino JAPAN 161 races*
Japanese F2000 (15 races): 7 wins, 13 poles, 13 podiums, 211pts   Japanese F2 (59 races): 12 wins, 17 poles, 38 podiums, 653pts  Tsukuba Champions Race winner: 1 pole   European F2 (4 races): 3pts   Japanese F3000 (82 races): 19 wins, 9 poles, 36 podiums, 356pts   Top tier: F1 (2 races)   SF (10 races): 1 win, 1 pole, 4 podiums, 31pts

Photo: Lola Heritage

Now known for running Team Impul in Super Formula, Hoshino is one of the all-time greats of Japanese motorsport but most of his years as a driving powerhouse came when his country’s top single-seater series used second-tier cars.

He first raced in Japanese F2000 in 1974, making the podium on his debut, and won the title in ’75 with four poles, two wins, a second and a third from four starts. Hoshino kept on going like that for years to come.

There were two wins from two starts in 1976, seven poles from seven attempts in ’77 as he became a two-time champion, and in the first F2 season in ’78 he added another title. Hoshino was runner-up in each of the next five seasons, and also won the Tsukuba circuit’s Champions Race for F2 cars from pole in 1979.

The first winless season was 1983 (which was also the first with his own team), and there wasn’t another until 1992. Hoshino was champion of the inaugural Japanese F3000 season in 1987, as he won four races in a year for the first time.

In 1990 he won six of the season’s 10 races to oblierate the opposition, and the year after was racing and beating Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher aged 44.

Although 1992 was a bump down to earth with two points finishes and one race he didn’t qualify for, Hoshino bounced back in 1993 with his sixth title in Japan and did so on victory countback against Irvine with two wins to his one.

Hoshino retired in 1996 with another impressive campaign that included a win and a pole. That was the first year of FNippon, and there were a contingent of Reynard 96Ds built to the series’ rules as it became a top-level series. But drivers were also allowed to race using their F3000 cars, and Hoshino did just that.

After a lot of deliberation, the Formula Scout team concluded that Hoshino’s ’96 season counted towards his time in the top tier of single-seater racing, and therefore alongside his starts in F1 (a series which was once open to F2 cars).

1. Roy Nissany ISRAEL 162 races
FR3.5/FV8 3.5 (53 races): 4 wins, 1 pole, 14 podiums, 417pts   F2 (109 races): 1 podium, 42pts

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The above decision means that earlier this month at Silverstone, Roy Nissany broke the record to become the most experienced driver ever in the second tier of single-seaters.

The Israeli only has one podium from his 109 starts in F2 to date, and only two top-five finishes in total. But he’s not totally unproven at this level, as from 2015 to ’17 he raced in FR3.5 (and latterly FV8 3.5) and in his second season there picked up three wins and three poles with the Charouz Racing System team. He also won a race with RP Motorsport in 2017.

Seven years on from FV8 3.5 and Nisany is driving for Charouz again in F2, with two ninth places in sprint races being the highlight of their reunion in what is so far a points-free season.

That’s a stat that Nissany has avoided until now, having scored at least one point in every year he has spent in F2 prior to 2023. In total he has 14 points finishes to his name, with eight of those coming in 2022 while driving for DAMS.

Nissany made his F1 test debut with Sauber while still in F3, where he had a best finish of sixth from 63 starts, and he then drove for Williams in 2019 post-season testing. After that he was signed as a test driver, and over the next three years got handed six free practice outings before leaving the team.

If Nissany sees out the 2023 F2 season, and stays on the grid for 2024, there’s a chance he could reach 200 races at this level.

The post The most experienced drivers in the second tier of single-seater racing appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd & FV8 3.5

Ralph Boschung debuted in F2 in 2017 but only recently claimed his first victory – in his 96th race in the championship. Who else has had to wait a long time to win in single-seater racing’s second tier series?

Campos Racing’s veteran driver Ralph Boschung sits atop the Formula 2 standings after four races, and goes into this weekend’s new event in Melbourne full of confidence after years of unfulfilled potential, budget issues and injury.

He has been in the series since 2017, making his debut before IndyCar podium-finisher Christian Lundgaard, Super Formula sophomore Ren Sato and series rookies Kakunoshin Ohta and Cem Bolukbasi had even started their car racing careers.

In recent years, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, F2 has packed more races into its schedule while Indy Nxt has shrunk its calendar, and the amount of race starts a driver gets in an F2 season now is 10 more than what drivers in Formula V8 3.5 (nee Formula Renault 3.5) had just six years ago. It’s also not far from being three times the amount that GP2 and F2 predecessor International Formula 3000 featured two decades ago.

That means it would now take less than two seasons to rack up 50 F2 starts, and at present only 35 drivers since the 1960s have stayed that long in the second tier of single-seaters without winning a race. So who in the past has had to wait that long to win, and did that stop them from making it to the top?

Giacomo Ricci did eight races in World Series by Nissan in 2004 before a kind of side-step to Euroseries 3000, a series which used old F3000 cars and later became known as Auto GP. While the cars were second-tier machinery, drivers treated the series as a step before competing in the modern cars of GP2 and FR3.5 and so none of Auto GP’s seasons have been included in Formula Scout’s calculations.

After winning that series in 2006, Ricci didn’t have the budget for GP2 so headed to the United States and via a shootout got a seat in Atlantics, a then-rival to the USA’s other second-tier series Indy Nxt. But things started to go wrong behind the scenes, which he explained in an interview with Formula Scout about his career, and through an old friend eventually ended up in GP2.

Photo: GP2 Media Service / LAT Images

The David Price Racing team he drove for rarely challenged the top 10, and Ricci only had the budget for part-seasons, but when DPR relocated to Italy it became far more competitive. Ricci ended his second GP2 Asia season with a win on his 50th start at that level [pictured above], then did the same in the main series later in 2010. He’s now Trident’s team manager in F2.

Also having to wait a half-century for success was Felipe Nasr, who was competitive from the off but never quite made it to the front. He made the podium 20 times in three seasons, took until his 37th start to lead a race, and was fourth in the standings as a sophomore despite not winning. During his third season he won four times and led 128 laps, earning him an F1 seat with Sauber for the next two years.

Christian Danner raced in European F2 from 1981 to ’84 and made the podium seven times in 47 races to twice come fifth in the standings. Victory was elusive in his March cars, despite being a factory driver of the marque for two years, but when he stuck with one of their chassis for European F2’s successor Int. F3000 in 1985 it proved a rewarding choice as it only took five races to win. That breakthrough win came in the Pau Grand Prix, and three more wins followed to make Danner champion.

F1 then beckoned, but he failed to make an impact in 35 starts there and returned to the second tier in 1990 to race for Leyton House in Japanese F3000. He made the podium in his season there, then spent several years bit-part in IndyCar.

There are three drivers who took 53 starts to win, and the most significant of these is Pierre Gasly. After winning the 2013 FR Eurocup title, Gasly was added to the Red Bull Junior Team and went 1015 days without winning a race. He retained Red Bull’s support though that trying time as he was actually performing very strongly.

His Eurocup title earned him a seat in FR3.5 where he was championship runner-up as a rookie, making the podium in almost half of the races, and he then moved across to GP2 where his rookie season was also impressive with three poles in the last four rounds and four podiums. But he was only eighth in the points, and so a second season in GP2 then made sense to do.

With new team Prema, Gasly edged team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi to the 2016 title and picked up four wins on the way. However it was still not enough to convince Red Bull to put him in F1, and he instead picked up top-tier experience in Formula E and Super Formula. In the latter he came incredibly close to becoming champion as a rookie, forcing Red Bull’s hand to finally give him an F1 shot. He’s now a grand prix winner and has finally left Red Bull’s ranks to race for Alpine.

Like several others on this list, Gasly also contested a GP2 race that is considered a non-championship affair and so is not included in statistics for driver starts. Gasly was in fact the cause of this statistical discrepancy, as a spin after two corners in the 2015 season finale at Yas Marina Circuit led to a multi-car crash, the race being immediately stopped and then being declared void as barriers could not be repaired in time for a restart and less than a lap had been completed.

During the days of GP2 Asia, sometimes the quality of the field was lower than in the main series and it enabled drivers to pick up results they wouldn’t have managed against tougher opposition on European tracks. Roldan Rodriguez was one example, a driver who was an irregular scorer until joining Piquet GP for the 2008-09 GP2 Asia season. He started the campaign off with victory from pole at Shanghai, and came third in the standings with an average finishing position of 10.7.

Takao Wada debuted in Japanese F2 in 1977, made the podium on his sixth start in 1979, but did not finish in the top three again until the 1986 season opener. It then wasn’t until 1988, once the series had become Japanese F3000, that he claimed the first of two career wins. He retired from the series in 1993, having appeared in 90 races.

Only Max Verstappen has raced at the top level of single-seaters at a younger age than Josef Kral, who aged 17 and having raced in nothing higher than Formula BMW got an A1GP call-up for Team Czech Republic.

After that he did more learning with two seasons in International Formula Master, winning three races, then took on GP2. Points were rare, and he bowed out after three years with victory on his 58th and final second-tier start. He’s since raced GTs.

Photo: GP2 Media Service

Marco Apicella had a 52-race career in Int. F3000, of which two poles and 10 podiums were the highlights. But victory in his five years there were elusive and he switched to Japanese F3000 for 1992. It only took six races for him to become a winner, he won again the next year and made his F1 debut with Jordan. That race lasted less than a kilometre, but he returned to Japan and became champion in 1994. Unfortunately he then scored no points in his title defence the year after.

One of few women to win at this level, Pippa Mann scored three times in two FR3.5 seasons, then only made the top 10 three times in her rookie Indy Nxt campaign in 2009. But switching to Sam Schmidt Motorsports for her sophomore season unlocked more pace, and she followed up pole position for the iconic Freedom 100 oval race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with two more poles, a win and a second place in the last three rounds to rise from 11th to fifth in the standings.

She made her IndyCar debut the following year, and seven of her 17 starts in the series have been in the Indianapolis 500.

10. Arie Luydenyk Jr THE NETHERLANDS/USA 62 races
Indy Lights (66 races): 1 win, 3 poles, 13 podiums, 1729pts   Top tier IndyCar (1 race)

Photo: IndyCar Series

Far more famous for his appearances on American dating shows than for his racing accomplishments, Luydenyk is the son of a two-time Indy 500 winner. He did make it to the Indy 500 in his own career, but never hit the highs his father did.

Luyendyk Jr’s Indy Nxt debut came in 2002, after two seasons in the fourth-tier USF2000 series and a handful of Formula Ford races in Europe. Making such a jump meant results were not to be expected straight away, but he exceeded expectations driving for his father’s own team with four second places and a pole to finish his rookie season as runner-up.

But such results became harder to achieve with each of the teams Luyendyk subsequently drove for. Two podiums and two poles in 2003 put him seventh in the standings, then he was third in 2004 with a further two podiums.

As the series moved away from having an oval-dominated calendar, Luydendyk became less competitive against drivers who were stepping up from series populated by road and street courses. He went 27 races and four years without a podium, before recapturing some of his old form in 2008. That season ended at Chicagoland Speedway, and with a first win for Luyendyk. After a few more Indy Nxt starts in 2010, the world of The Bachelorette beckoned.

=8. Fairuz Fauzy MALAYSIA 65 races
GP2 (62 races): 5pts   GP2 Asia (14 races): 1 win, 3 podiums, 25pts   FR3.5 (57 races): 1 win, 2 poles, 10 podiums, 181pts   Top tier A1GP (22 races): 1 win, 2 podiums, 57pts

Photo: GP2 Media Service

Much of Fauzy’s racing career has been intrinsicly linked to his home country, driving for Malaysian teams in various series.

A combination of a period of financial propserity in the nation, the timing of having multiple Malaysian-owned firms active in F1 including Lotus, and a handful of top results in competitive championships doing enough to dampen the pay driver label he would otherwise have meant Fauzy was a contender to race in F1 during the early 2010s.

He never made it, and it was never quite clear whether he was F1-ready based on his junior series results alone. And Lotus certainly didn’t believe he was after a year of testing as they prematurely released him from a five-year contract.

Fauzy debuted in GP2 in 2005, stepping up after taking one podium from 70 races in British Formula 3. He scored no points in his first two GP2 seasons, and in the meantime made his top-level debut for Team Malaysia in A1GP.

For 2007 he switched to FR3.5, and looked far more competitive with three podiums and a pole position. Fauzy then returned to A1GP duties alongside a season in GP2 Asia. At the infamous Sentul round, where changing weather and a deteriorating track surface required teams to equip cars with protective devices for wings, Fauzy earned his first win from reversed-grid pole in the sprint race.

After his A1GP duties concluded he came in late to the 2008 FR3.5 season, but made the podium in Monaco in his comeback race. There was only one points finish in the 12 races that followed, but then when Fauzy returned to A1GP – and now in a full-time capacity – he looked a significantly improved driver and started the season with victory and a second place.

Fauzy chose FR3.5 for his main programme again in 2009, and in the first four rounds only once finished higher than seventh. That result was a win from pole at the Hungaroring though, and consistent scoring and a few more podiums thereon led to him winning a five-way fight to be championship runner-up.

Following his year of auditioning for a Lotus F1 drive, Fauzy returned to all three of the second-tier series he had previously raced in but had patchy form that made it even more inconclusive about what his level was as a driver.

=8. Masahiko Kageyama JAPAN 65 races
Japanese F3000/FNippon (73 races): 2 wins, 2 poles, 8 podiums, 56pts   Top tier FNippon (19 races): 1pt

Photo: Demodori6

While the series that is now known as Super Formula has always been at the top level of Japan’s single-seater scene, for several decades it ran to F2 and then F3000 rules before joining F1 and IndyCar as a top-tier series in 1999.

Kageyama raced there from 1990 to 2001, and his two wins came in what was Formula Nippon’s final year as a junior series.

Success only arrived once he joined Team Impul for the 1997 season, having already become Japanese Touring Car champion with the team four years prior.

Three podiums and 16 points put Kageyama seventh in the ’97 standings, and he started 1998 with victory at Suzuka. He earned his first FNippon pole at the same track four races later, and converted that into a second career win, with his only other point that season coming in the final race which was also held at Suzuka. It was still enough to put him fourth in the standings, two positions behind his younger brother Masami.

Whenever the older Kageyama swapped single-seaters for cars with a roof he was more success-prone, winning two titles in the series that preceded Super GT and also coming third in the Le Mans 24 Hours for Nissan.

7. Nicholas Latifi CANADA 66 races
FR3.5 (23 races): 1 podium, 75pts   GP2/F2 (98 races): 6 wins, 21 podiums, 506pts   Top tier F1 (61 races): 9pts

Photo: LAT Images

In addition to the ‘non-championship’ Abu Dhabi race, Latifi’s career in the second tier also includes the infamous F2 race at Spa-Francorchamps in 2019 which Anthoine Hubert lost his life in and has also been scrubbed from the series’ stats books.

Latifi’s journey into motorsport meant he started competing seriously at a far later age than his peers, and learned much of the intricacies of driving from paper and theory-based work. But with a father who provided the funding to make up for any lost ground at each step of the motorsport ladder, he couldn’t rely on a late start as an excuse by the time he reached FR3.5.

• Feature: Why Nicholas Latifi’s rise to F1 is more remarkable than you think

A podium on his sixth FR3.5 start there proved to be a false dawn, and after a full season there he switched to GP2. There was a 27-race wait for his next podium, achieved in the 2016 GP2 season opener, then another 25-race wait for a follow-up to that.

But the continuity of staying with DAMS, who he ultimately spent four seasons driving for, helped Latifi continually improve and he finally claimed his first win in F2’s Silverstone sprint race in 2017. Nine podiums from 21 races that season put Latifi an impressive fifth in the standings.

In 2018 he and the team suffered a setback with the introduction of F2’s new car, but had got on top of it the season after and Latifi started 2019 by winning three of the first five races. Despite becoming championship runner-up behind Nyck de Vries, Latifi was firmly considered a pay driver when he stepped up to F1 with Williams in 2020.

6. Max Chilton ENGLAND 70 races
FR3.5 (1 race)   GP2 (62 races): 2 wins, 2 poles, 4 podiums, 176pts   GP2 Asia (12 races): 2pts   GP2 Final (2 races)   Indy Nxt (13 races): 1 win, 3 poles, 6 podiums, 258 pts   Top tier F1 (35 races)   IndyCar (83 races): 1351pts

Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, LLC Photography

Another driver whose father paved the way to the top via some large-scale financial investments in their son’s career, Chilton is also the younger brother of former British Touring Car star Tom Chilton.

In 2009 the younger Chilton came fourth in British F3 with Carlin, a team his father became majority shareholder of and thereon became a maintay in Chilton’s career.

Although he first raced in GP2 with Ocean Racing Technology, once Carlin arrived in the series in 2011 he was back in their line-up and he came 20th in the standings that year. A singular fifth place was Chilton’s best result after 53 races in the second tier of single-seaters, but he and the team made a big jump up the order as 2012 began.

Chilton started the season with his first podium, and in round nine at the Hungaroring he won the feature race from pole. A further pole and another feature race win meant he came fourth in the points, and with the Marussia F1 team sponsoring Carlin through 2012 it was no surprise that Chilton then stepped up to F1 with Russian-owned manufacturer.

He lost his seat after two seasons, and returned to Carlin which was now competing in Indy Nxt. Doing an incomplete campaign prevented a title challenge, but Chilton was competitive in his outings – taking a win and three poles –  and did enough to earn an IndyCar seat for 2016. After two seasons and one top-five finish with Chip Ganassi Racing, he left the team to once again reunite with Carlin and lead their entry into IndyCar.

=4. Rio Haryanto INDONESIA 72 races
GP2 Final (2 races)   GP2 (89 races): 3 wins, 7 podiiums, 226pts   Top tier F1 (12 races)

Photo: Manor Racing

After winning the 2009 FBMW Pacific title, Haryanto became a junior of F1’s new Virgin Racing team and enter GP3 with the linked Manor Racing outfit. He won on his fourth start and as the team’s highest placed driver in the standings got a prize F1 test at the end of 2010.

Haryanto only scored five times in his sophomore GP3 season with the team, although took two wins and two further podiums, and was similarly inconsistent through his GP2 career.

After debuting in the single-event GP2 Final at the end of 2011, Haryanto made the full-time move to GP2 alongside Chilton in the Marussia-backed Carlin (with Marussia succeeding Virgin in ownership of the F1 team).

• Feature: The man to call when looking for F1’s next Asian driver

The highlight of his rookie season was pole in the wet at Spa, but his best race result was a fifth place, and moving to the Addax team for 2013 brought a first podium but less points and also a departure from Marussia’s ranks.

Signing with Caterham’s GP2 team in 2014 didn’t bring him into F1 contention with that brand, and the results were lacking again. Everything changed for Haryanto the year when he joined Campos Racing, instantly becoming a victory threat.

The long-awaited first win came in the sprint race of round one at Bahrain, and two more sprint race wins followed. Haryanto was the only driver of that year’s GP2 crop to land a full-time F1 drive for 2016, reuniting with Manor in the process, but budget issues meant he only lasted 12 races before losing his seat.

=4. Jerome d’Ambrosio BELGIUM 72 races
FR3.5 (7 races)   GP2 (58 races): 1 win, 1 pole, 7 podiums, 71pts   GP2 Asia (21 races): 6 podiums, 48pts   Top tier F1 (20 races)   FE (69 races): 3 wins, 2 poles, 9 podiums, 322pts

Photo: GP2 Media Service

D’Ambrosio has come a long way since his GP2 days, which were notable for a rare instance of a driver in a junior series losing their seat based on a lack of results (for one weekend only).

The Belgian’s first second-tier starts came in FR3.5 in 2006, contesting four rounds before switching to Euroseries 3000. He stepped down to Int. FMaster for 2007, and became champion, then headed to GP2 with DAMS.

Two podiums in the Asian series was an encouraging start for d’Ambrosio, and after a slow start in the main series he was runner-up in two sprint races in the final three rounds. That momentum continued into GP2 Asia over the winter of 2008-09, where he was championship runner-up with a pole and four podiums, and then he started the 2009 season with three podiums in the first four races. Nine points-free races followed, then three fourth places lifted him to ninth in the standings.

The Gravity Sport Management organisation that looked after d’Ambrosio’s career was heavily involved in the Renault F1 team at the time, and he was made one of its reserve drivers for 2010. Gravity also orchestrated a deal for d’Ambrosio to become a free practice driver for Virgin later in the year, but also pulled him out of his GP2 seat during the season for underperforming.

D’Ambrosio had actually broken his victory duck in the Monaco sprint race, but failed to score after that and Romain Grosjean was called up to replace him at Hockenheim. Once he returned to his seat, d’Ambrosio qualified on pole at Spa, made the podium at Monza and earned an F1 seat with Virgin for 2011.

He lasted one year racing in F1 before returning to his reserve role at Renault, now known as Lotus, and then raced in FE for six seasons. D’Ambrosio won three E-Prix, and his experience earned him a management role at Venturi after he stopped driving. He left the team and the series last year, and recently was signed by Mercedes to head up its F1 junior team.

3. Stephane Richelmi MONACO 73 races
FR3.5 (17 races): 6pts   GP2 (70 races): 1 win, 2 poles, 4 podiums, 201pts   GP2 Final (2 races)

Photo: Sam Bloxham/GP2 Series Media Service

The son of French Gravel Rally champion Jean-Pierre Richelmi had a single-seater career that was light on wins at every level he competed at.

He went through three years of FR1.6 and FR2.0 without a victory, but in Italian F3 won four times en route to second in the standings in 2010. From there he stepped up to FR3.5, scoring once in his rookie season, then moved to GP2 at the end of 2011.

It took 13 races to score his first points, and six races later he claimed his first podium in remarkable fashion at Hockenheim from 22nd on the grid. He made up eight places on lap six of the race, then another 10 places a lap later to move into second as he had gambled on starting using slick tyres on a drying track. Following his compulsory pitstop he dropped to fifth, but made it back to third in an inspired drive.

It was a one-off though, with Richelmi not featuring near the front again until 11 months later when he was second at Silverstone in the feature race. He was on pole next time out at the Nurburgring, but there was another long wait for further success.

DAMS was the team to beat in 2014, and Richelmi reaped the rewards of driving for them with pole at Barcelona and, finally, a first win at home in the Monaco sprint race. He stood on the podium one more time, while his team-mate became champion.

2. Ralph Boschung SWITZERLAND 96 races
F2 (99 races): 1 win, 6 podiums, 163.5pts

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Most of what there is to say about Boschung has been said recently, but it’s still worth recapping his career at this level.

Boschung ran out of budget one round before the end in his rookie season in 2017, then suffered the same fate two rounds from the finish in 2018.

The funding dried up after five rounds in 2019, but he was able to return to return for two rounds later in the year, then in 2020 he only contested the season finale as a last-minute stand-in for Jack Aitken who had been summoned to race in F1.

The elusive prospect of a full F2 season finally occurred in 2021 with Campos, and having greater financial stability was reflected in Boschung’s results. He came 10th in the standings with two podiums, and started 2022 looking even stronger. After making the podium for a second time at Imola, Boschung’s season was ruined by a neck injury that kept him out of his car for 12 races. On his comeback at Spa he immediately made the podium, showing the potential that year could have held.

Now fully recovered, and with a Campos team that is benefitting from a high-profile technical signing, Boschung started 2023 with that all-important victory, and he leads the championship after four races. Could he win the title?

1. Rene Binder AUSTRIA 98 races
GP2/F2 (75 races): 16pts   FR3.5 (38 races): 4 wins, 2 poles, 10 podiums, 366pts   Top tier IndyCar (6 races): 61pts

Photo: Sebastiaan Rozendaal/Dutch Photo Agency

Binder’s 75-race career in GP2/F2 featured not a single result of note, but once he headed to FV8 3.5 his results, and the perception of him, started to change.

Driving for the Lotus-branded Charouz Racing System team, Binder made the podium five times and came seventh in the standings in 2016. The opposition may not have been at the same standard as GP2, but it was more the differences between team peformances that influenced Binder’s ability to fight towards the front in FV8 3.5.

He continued with Charouz for 2017, and although he had no answer to team-mate Pietro Fittipaldi he was one of the contenders to be best of the rest. After four-and-a-half years of waiting, Binder won a race for the first time at Monza.

The next day he won again at the track, and later in the year won from pole at Circuit of the Americas and Bahrain. Only Fittipaldi won more races than him, and – almost unimaginable just a year prior – Binder then stepped up to IndyCar in a part-time drive with Juncos Racing.

Now Boschung has won, the closest active driver to threatening Binder’s record is Carlin F2 driver Enzo Fittipaldi on 40 starts.

The post The longest waits for victory in the second tier of single-seater racing appeared first on Formula Scout.

PaddockScout looks back at another action-packed weekend of action in the junior categories, beginning with typically weather-affected GP2 and GP3 races at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps…

The support races to the Belgian Grand Prix are usually eventful affairs, and this past weekend was no exception. In GP2, rain played havoc with the qualifying session on Friday afternoon, allowing Christian Vietoris to take pole position by a whopping 1.4 seconds. He set the time on a drying track at the very end of the session, when a yellow flag in the final sector causing many to abort their laps. The German driver didn’t do the same, took pole by that massive margin and then escaped the wrath of the stewards.

Saturday’s feature race began in the dry, and Vietoris led away from the start and remained there until the rain came down again. The safety car soon came out due to one car that had spun, with a further two-car accident causing it to remain out until one lap from the end as Stefano Coletti required medical assistance. The Monegasque driver will miss the remainder of the season after sustaining compressed vertebrae when his car went over the rear of Mikhail Aleshin when the reigning Formula Renault 3.5 champion’s car slowed due to a technical problem.

This allowed Vietoris to take his second GP2 win and his first since Monza last year. Jules Bianchi was second, while Romain Grosjean wrapped up the title after climbing from seventh to third on the opening lap. His nearest rivals Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic both failed to finish with weekends to forget.

Luca Filippi was fourth, ahead of series returnee Brendon Hartley who scored the Ocean team’s first points of the year in his first race for them. Dani Clos, Josef Kral and Fairuz Fauzy completed the points with the latter two then having their positions swapped by the stewards after a minor overtaking discrepancy under the safety car.

Kral began the Sunday morning sprint race from pole and kept the lead until a safety car period midway through the race, which allowed Filippi to catch him. He wasted no time in getting by after the restart and took his second win from three meetings with the Coloni team. Kral succumbed to Bianchi before the flag, with the Frenchman taking another second place to boost his chances of getting the runner-up spot overall.

Grosjean was fourth, ahead of Sam Bird who charged through the pack to fifth after the safety car. Clos took the final point in sixth place. The season finale takes place at Monza in two weeks’ time.

Driver standings after 8 of 9 rounds:

1. Romain Grosjean, 83 pts (+ 9 pts)
2. Giedo van der Garde, 49 (+ 0)
3. Jules Bianchi, 48 (+ 13)
4. Charles Pic, 42 (+ 0)
5. Luca Filippi, 40, (+ 12)
6. Sam Bird, 37 (+ 2)

Brendon Hartley showed his skills with a points-scoring return to GP2, driving for a team who were yet to score a single point in 2011. Photo: GP2 Media Service

In GP3 the ART team dominated the weekend. James Calado defeated teammate Valtteri Bottas in anotherdrying-track qualifying session on Saturday morning, but the tables turned at the start of the first race that afternoon. Bottas drove around the outside of Calado at La Source, and drove off into the distance to record his third win from four races. Calado was second while Nigel Melker came out on top of a scrap with Adrian Quaife-Hobbs for third place.

Conor Daly came across the line in fifth, ahead of Tom Dillmann and Nico Muller. Richie Stanaway, making his series debut this weekend with ART having dominated the German F3 Cup so far this year, scored the final point in eighth having qualified 18th on the grid.

This handed him pole position for Sunday morning’s second race, and although he lost out to Muller off the line he had the lead back again by the end of the opening lap. He took a comfortable victory, as Calado stormed his way through to second place. Muller was third, ahead of Michael Christensen, Simon Trummer and another debutant, Alex Fontana.

Bottas had been following Calado through into fourth place, before a technical problem dropped him down the order. His no score allows Calado to close within five points ahead of the season finale at Monza. Melker, Alexander Sims (who suffered a point-less weekend) and Quaife-Hobbs are still mathematically in with a chance of the title, but realistically it’s down to the ART duo.

Driver standings after 7 of 8 rounds:

1. Valtteri Bottas, 52 pts (+ 11 pts)
2. James Calado, 47 (+ 16)
3. Nigel Melker, 38 (+ 6)
4. Alexander Sims, 34 (+ 0)
5. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, 33 (+ 5)
6. Lewis Williamson, 31 (+ 0)

We're not sure whether having a livery that matched the circuit colours had something to do with it, but James Calado took two second places to become Bottas' main title rival. Photo: GP3 Media Service

Away from Spa, the sixth round of the FIA Formula Two Championship took place at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, with Ramon Pineiro taking a double victory. Having claimed his maiden win last time out at Brands Hatch, the Spaniard put his flourescent yellow car on pole for Saturday’s race. He pulled away from championship leader Mirko Bortolotti to record a comfortable victory. Behind Bortolotti, Mihai Marinescu picked up his maiden podium in the category, ahead of Alex Brundle and Jack Clarke. Bortolott’s nearest title rival Christopher Zanella started from third but lost a few places early on before a drive-through penalty for exceeding track limits demoted him to 12th.

Bortolotti initially took pole on Sunday morning, only to be penalised for blocking another driver. He fell to third, handing pole to Zanella and second to Pineiro. Zanella once again ran wide on the opening lap, allowing Pineiro through. Bortolotti kept on his tail for the rest of the race but Pineiro claimed his third straight win. Marinescu was once again on the podium, ahead of Zanella and Kelvin Snoeks.

Bortolotti has stretched his lead to 60 points over Zanella, with the Italian only needing to leave his home race at Monza with a lead of 51 points to wrap up the title before the season finale in Barcelona.

Driver standings after 6 of 8 rounds:

1. Mirko Bortolotti, 223 pts (+ 36 pts)
2. Christopher Zanella, 163 (+ 12)
3. Ramon Pineiro, 122 (+ 50)
4. Miki Monras, 108 (+ 0)
5. Tobias Hegewald, 99 (+ 8 )
6. Jack Clarke, 92 (+ 10)

This was just about the only view anyone got of Pineiro in the races in Austria. Photo: FIA Formula Two Championship

Supporting F2 in Austria was Formula Abarth, with two races counting towards the European series classification. Russian teenager Sergey Sirotkin won the first race ahead of Patric Niederhauser, with the pair reversing their positions for the second race. Sirotkin holds a 26 point lead over Niederhauser with three race weekends remaining in October, two of which also count towards the Italian championship that Niederhauser leads.

Finally, the penultimate weekend of the Formula Renault North European Cup took place at Most in the Czech Republic. One win and two second places were enough for Carlos Sainz Jr. to seal the title, despite fellow Red Bull Junior and nearest rival Daniil Kvyat winning the other two races and coming second to Sainz in the other race. Stoffel Vandoorne, Jordan King and John Bryant-Meissner shared the podium with the Red Bull duo in one race each. The season finishes outside of what you could consider ‘North Europe’ to be, at Monza in Italy on 24/25 September.

Driver of the weekend: James Calado – His teammates may have won the two GP3 races at Spa, but Calado’s double second-place was enough to make him Bottas’ only realistic rival heading to Monza.

The post PaddockScout Weekend Roundup: 27-28 August appeared first on Formula Scout.