Photo: Chris Owens

Every year, some of junior single-seaters’ top drivers are handed professional opportunities. Some lead to long-term careers in sportscars, while others try out the more cut-throat world of F1 and IndyCar

In addition to annually ranking the top 50 drivers in junior single-seater racing since 2011, Formula Scout also recognises the achievements of the very best of those who ‘graduate’ into the world of professional racing each year.

For 2022 there seemed to be a smaller group of drivers moving up than usual, with several names who had raced at the secondary level of single-seaters switching into sportscars in seats at what would be considered a non-professional level.

The most noticable driver to miss the cut on makng the “Class of 2021” was Dan Ticktum, who scored one point and finished 21st in Formula E this year. Devlin DeFrancesco similarly spent much of his rookie IndyCar season down the order.

Oliver Rasmussen started his first year in sportscars by finishing ninth in the Daytona 24 Hours, and he went on to take two World Endurance Championship podiums, but he did still continue to race single-seaters in FIA Formula 3. Similarly, Pierre-Louis Chovet pursued opportunities with Lamborghini but then also starred in Formula Regional.

Tijmen van der Helm and Alex Peroni both raced LMP2 cars like Rasmussen, but were in Pro-Am entries. Sebastian Alvarez was arguably the top single-seaters-to-sportscar graduate, as he starred in the Asian and European Le Mans Series, except he took on a drive in the tertiary level LMP3 prototype category so it was not at a professional level. Nico Pino did the same, while Gillian Henrion dominated the Ligier European Series for prototype cars but against amateur opposition.

Elias Seppanen and Lorenzo Patrese went from FRegional and Formula 4 respectively into GTs, while former Sauber junior Dexter Patterson put behind a chaotic 2021 in the junior series to make a surprise move into the British Touring Car Championship.

As none of these names could make the cut, here is Formula Scout’s Class of 2021… Key Wins (W), poles (P), fastest laps (FL)

10. Atsushi Miyake JAPAN 23y/o
14th in Super Formula (1 FL), 35th in Super GT300   2021: 4th in SF Lights (2 W, 1 FL), 5th in Super GT300 (1 W, 1 FL)

Photo: Super Formula

Photo: Super Formula

Miyake was a surprise addition to the 2022 Super Formula grid. After one season in Formula 4 he was dropped as a Honda junior and switched to sportscars in Super GT300, where he has been for three years.

But in 2021 he made an unexpected single-seater return in Super Formula Lights with the underdog Rn-sports team, winning twice and finishing fourth in the standings.

Rather than build on his SF Lights experience, he was then signed by Team Goh – a squad racing independently after several years of co-running a single car – for SF.

Miyake had car experience from 2021 post-season testing with KCMG, and his rookie SF campaign initially belied his inexperience as he claimed a top-five finish in his second race and a podium and fastest lap in his fourth race. But the year thereon was difficult, and a lack of manufacturer affiliation means his future is undetermined.

9. Casper Stevenson ENGLAND 19/o
4th in Gulf 12 Hours, 40th in GT World Challenge Europe (13th in Sprint, 32nd in Endurance)   2021: 6th in Euroformula (2 W)

Photo: SRO

Photo: SRO

Stevenson did start his car racing career in sportscars, coming sixth in Ginetta Junior in 2019, but he then went on to race in British F4 (finishing third with two wins) and then Euroformula (sixth with two wins) after a brief go at Formula Regional proved unrewarding.

After joining GP3 runner-up Facu Regalia’s management company, Stevenson moved into GT3 sportscars this February in the Gulf 12 Hours. The event only attracted 12 GT3 cars, but Stevenson did finish fourth.

Top Mercedes team Auto Sport Promotion then signed him for GT World Challenge Europe, the world’s most competitive GT series. Partnered with Thomas Drouet, there was five top-eight finishes in the Sprint races, which translated to seven podiums and second in the Silver Cup standings (as Stevenson is graded Silver by the FIA). Eighth place in the Paul Ricard 1000km meant he was ninth in the Endurance standings for the Silver Cup too.

8. Kyle Kirkwood USA 24y/o
24th in IndyCar, 9th in IMSA GTD Pro (1 W, 1 P), 45th in GTD (1 W, 1P)   2021: Indy Lights champion (10 W, 7 P, 9 FL)

Photo: Chris Jones

Photo: Joe Skibinski

There was lots of expectation placed on Kirkwood ahead of his IndyCar debut, having dominated all three Road to Indy series at his first attempt, and unfortunately those expectations weren’t matched.

Starting his IndyCar career at AJ Foyt Racing was never going to be an easy task, but having a seat secured at the way more competitive Andretti Autosport team for 2023 six races into the year should have lifted pressure off his shoulders and allowed him to concentrate on learning.

Conversely, it seemed to be the other way round as mistakes that resulted in accidents when he was running strong were too frequent, and the 10th place achieved at Long Beach in only the third race remained his best result. Notwithstanding, the flashes of speed he showed are definitely a good sign for the future.

7. Ren Sato JAPAN 21y/o
12th in SF (1 FL)   2021: 3rd in SF Lights (5 W, 2 P, 6 FL), 4th in Super GT300 (1 FL)   2020: 2nd in French Formula 4 (4 W, 2 P, 6 FL)

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Super Formula

The Honda junior was already known internationally as a rising star, having claimed the Japanese F4 title in 2019, come second in French F4 in 2020, and then won five times en route to third in the SF Lights points last year.

So when he was signed by Team Goh (to form an all-rookie line-up) and then became a Red Bull junior early in 2022, the expectation rose further. And then even more when he qualified second on his SF debut.

But he fluffed his first start in the series, dropping to sixth immediately then being spun to the back. He made it into the lead before pitting, which dropped him to 11th, and he finished ninth.

The next day he qualified fourth, but made another bad start and finished 13th. The highs and lows continued, and he lost Red Bull junior team boss Dr Helmut Marko’s favour. Sato, who’d already had a brush with losing his Honda backing in 2021, was under big pressure.

He used an overcut strategy to finish seventh and third in two of the last three races, but on the season’s final day he spun in qualifying and behind the safety car. Yet it was enough to be SF’s top rookie, and – despite Red Bull and Goh splitting – earn a Nakajima Racing seat for 2023.

6. Zhou Guanyu CHINA 23y/o
18th in F1   2021: 3rd in F2 (4 W, 1 P, 1 FL), FRegional Asia chamion (4 W, 5 P, 5 FL)   2020: 6th in F2 (1 W, 1 P, 4 FL)

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

It could be said that Zhou arrived well prepared into Formula 1 after clocking a generous number of laps in private testing during his time as part of the Renault/Alpine stable. Nevertheless, making the step onto the pinnacle of motorsport is never easy as there is much more than just driving, and doing so with a different team to the one you have been preparing with just adds to that.

Zhou’s tally of points compared to his Alfa Romeo team-mate Valtteri Bottas doesn’t provide a full picture of the year. While Bottas was scoring points consistently early in the season, Zhou was still adapting to the category, and by the time the Chinese driver had closed the performance gap to his team-mate, the car had already lost ground to its competitors.

5. David Malukas LITHUANIA/USA 21y/o
16th in IndyCar (2 FL)   2021: 2nd in Indy Lights (7 W, 7 P, 4 FL)   2020: 2nd in FRegional Americas (2 W, 1 FL)

Photo: Chris Jones

Photo: Sean Birkle

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports’ Malukas was for many the revelation of the IndyCar season, especially in the second half of the year.

The 2021 Indy Lights runner-up needed a few weekends to get to the grips with America’s top single-seater series, but as the season progressed he felt more and more comfortable in the car, which translated into more speed on track. And he clearly outpaced team-mate Takuma Sato, a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner no less, in the season’s second half.

Whereas qualifying was usually his strongest point, his racecraft on ovals had him come home in second place at Gateway in what were vibrant final laps, which included a brilliant move around the outside of Scott McLaughlin.

4. Reema Juffali SAUDI ARABIA 30y/o
6th in Int. GT Open (4 Pro-Am class W), Spa 24H Bronze Cup winner

Photo: Fotospeedy

Photo: Fotospeedy

Already one of the most high-profile women in motorsport as the first female racing driver from Saudi Arabia, Juffali also became one of the higher achieving ones on-track in 2022.

Having mustered just three top-five finishes from 102 races over three years in junior single-seaters, Juffali adapted to GT3 racing far quicker and came second in her class and ninth overall on her endurance racing debut in the Dubai 24 Hours. She also came second in class on her Nordeschleife debut.

Following that she made the unprecedented step of establishing her own team entry, Theeba Motorsport, to enter International GT Open. It was a rewarding season alongside the experienced Adam Christodoulou in terms of results and paddock learnings, coming sixth in the championship with three podiums. The pair were also second in the Pro-Am standings.

Juffali was the top Bronze Cup entry at the Spa 24H too, and her driver grading from the FIA will go down from Silver to Bronze for 2023. Slightly unfair for a driver who was no slouch as a rookie and quickly became a star of the paddock.

3. Lorenzo Colombo ITALY 22y/o
5th in LMP2 Endurance Trophy, 3rd in ELMS (3 W, 1 FL)   2021: 15th in FIA F3 (1 W, 2 FL)

Photo: ELMS

Colombo and Prema were both new to sportscars racing coming into 2022, however, team and driver felt immediately at home and were completely up to the challenge that had been posed to them.

Initially, the Italian had been signed for WEC only, but he also ended up deputising for Juan Manuel Correa in ELMS, where he achieved the best results. Hadn’t Correa returned for the last two rounds after settling his FIA F3 commitments, Colombo would have won the ELMS drivers’ title like his team-mates Ferdinand Habsburg and Louis Deletraz did.

Notwithstanding, three victories out of four participations together awarded Colombo third place in the final standings.

2. Bent Viscaal THE NETHERLANDS 23y/o
9th in European LMS, 26th in LMP2 Endurance Trophy (6th in Pro-Am)   2021: 14th in F2   2020: 13th in FIA F3 (1 W, 1 FL)

Photo: ARC Bratislava

Photo: ELMS

Algarve Pro Racing’s restructuring after ending its collaboration with G-Drive as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February resulted in Viscaal being part of a two-driver, Silver-graded line-up in the team’s Pro car in ELMS.

He quickly switched his mind from single-seaters to sportscars and together with Sophia Floersch stepped onto the podium in the first race of the season at Paul Ricard. The pair continued to put some spectacular performances that often went unrewarded due to misfortunes. A team-mate change with two rounds to go wouldn’t hinder Viscaal, who was named ELMS’ Rookie of the Year despite only finishing ninth in the overall standings.

The Dutchman was also part of ARC Bratislava’s WEC line-up for the Spa 6 Hours and Le Mans 24H, where the team finished third in LMP2 Pro-Am class.

1. Christian Lundgaard DENMARK 21y/o
14th in IndyCar   2021: 12th in F2, 37th in IndyCar   2020: 7th in F2 (2 W, 1 P, 2 FL)

Photo: Joe Skibinski

Photo: James Black

A 2021 Formula 2 season which was far from meeting expectations crashed any small chance that Lungaard could have of making it to F1. Aware of that, the Dane already started to look elsewhere mid-year, making a one-off IndyCar appearance with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course race in August. He qualified in an impressive fourth place and finished the race in 12th after leading two laps.

Having made a splash in his debut, Lungaard returned to the USA in 2022 to race full-time in IndyCar, and he didn’t disappoint. Despite RLLR not being as fast as in previous years, he proved that the performance of his debut wasn’t just a very good day in the car. He was strong and consistent most of the time, matching his very experienced team-mate Graham Rahal and clearly outpacing Jack Harvey. A podium at the second IMS road course race and fifth place at Laguna Seca together with five more top-10 finishes made him the top rookie as he finished 14th in the standings, two spots ahead of rival Malukas.

Written by Alejandro Alonso Lopez and Ida Wood

The post Formula Scout’s Class of 2021 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Alpine

Last week it finally looked like the Alpine Academy would have a driver graduate to its own F1 team, but now that doesn’t seem certain at all. Are 2022’s changes encouraging for that ambition in the future?

Since Renault’s rebranding of its Formula 1 team to Alpine ahead of the 2021 season, there has been some big changes behind the scenes. Key appointments, and departures, as well as reshuffling of positions within the company has brought along a new vision for the brand in single-seaters in addition to new colours (from yellow and white to blue and pink).

Those changes impacted its young driver development programme, or at least at the launch last year that was what was pitched to the press by Alpine’s chief executive officer Laurent Rossi. Formula Scout understands his marketing-led vision at all levels clashed with the sport-focused plan that then-Academy director Mia Sharizman had been implementing since he came to the helm there in 2016 when Renault bought the Lotus F1 team.

While Sharizman had failed in the Academy’s previous fundamental objective in taking a driver to an F1 seat, and that was not helped by big money drivers signings at Enstone that have filled one of the team’s two seats over the past four seasons, the programme was selective enough in its support of drivers after its first year (when many of its drivers had been signed based on pre-existing agreements on 2015 results) that it mostly avoided ‘bad’ signings.

But Renault then let go of drivers just when it really needed to support them, and following the rather regrettable dropping of Sacha Fenestraz (who now stars for Toyota in Japan and is set to be announced this week as a Nissan Formula E driver) it avoided double embarassment with French drivers by re-signing Victor Martins in 2021 after a season out of the academy and made Hadrien David an affiliate of the programme (although he describes his position as F1 junior in all but name) this year having also released him for 12 months. The other success story it let slip was Yifei Ye, now of Porsche Asia Pacific.

Ye [pictured below] was one of several Chinese drivers to pass through the Academy, and all of them were underutilised in marketing potential, particularly Zhou Guanyu last year given Rossi’s desires.

Photo: Malcolm Griffiths / FIA F3 Championship

But at the end of the day it was not Rossi in charge of the Alpine Academy, nor the marketing team (who were steeped in rally lore with their 2021 target of reminding people Alpine cars actually exist and that the brand had motorsport pedigree) either.

So another change had to take place to execute Rossi’s strategy, although it came too late to hold on to Zhou as he found an F1 berth with Alfa Romeo Racing for 2022 rather than spend a fourth season in Formula 2 or on the sidelines with title rival and Alpine stablemate Oscar Piastri for a year.

Former Arden and Fortec Motorsports team manager Julian Rouse joined in March, then a few weeks later Sharizman left and it was only in May that Alpine publicly confirmed that he had been replaced as manager by Rouse.

The new leadership structure also included Pierre Sancinena, already a company man not only in engineering roles but also through race-winning exploits in Alpine sportscars as a driver, who was promoted from coach to development manager.

Completing the set is W Series racer Alice Powell, who races against her own protege Abbi Pulling and also works with her in an Alpine capacity as she is the academy’s talent identification and development mentor and Pulling is an affiliate (with Alpine refusing to hand full junior status to anyone racing below FIA Formula 3).

Powell won the Formula Renault BARC title in 2010 and the Asian title four years later, with a GP3 season, a year in the F3 Cup and a Renault-sponsored MRF Challenge campaign inbetween, and after her time in single-seaters ended she went into driver coaching. In 2019 her open-wheel career was revived with the creation of W Series, which put a spotlight on her coaching work as well as her own driving in the F1 support paddock (for the past two seasons), and combined with being a decade-long user of Alpine’s team gymn led her down the path of now working for the team.

“I’m still doing coaching [outside of Alpine],” Powell told Formula Scout in the British Formula 4 paddock where she was ‘off-shift’ but saying hello to everyone and keeping an eye on some drivers regardless.

Piastri and Pulling

“It’s [just] fitting in time to do it! So I help Abbi, a karter in karting, and [long-time protege] Ella Stevens from time to time as well. So not as much in the F4 side anymore, but just fitting it in really.

“Alpine has always had a good space in my heart. I’ve been close to that facility since about 2010, ’11, so for me to sort of be part of the team, and my main role mainly is to help mentor the female drivers and then be like a talent scout really. It’s great to have an involvement with the team, but also probably one of the most successful sort of academies in F1.”

Because she is working for an F1 team, but with Alpine Academy affiliates who race away from the F1 support bill, factory time is as important as finding the time to catch them in their paddocks.

“Still going to do stuff at the factory,” she confirmed. “I’ve trained at their facilities, probably actually since 2010, so still go there and train at their facilities [with the drivers]. But also in the factory, in the Academy office. And whenever I’m in, I’ll always pop in [to Rouse’s office].”

Being a modern day F1 scout doesn’t quite involve standing on a grass bank, writing down a lot of notes and submitting a big written report to her bosses, and Powell’s description makes it sound like her role in 2022 very much is about finding out what Alpine – and Rossi – wants while building the equivalent of a database on drivers who are impressing in karting and entry-level single-seaters. It’s certainly not driven by the need to find ‘X’ amount of drivers to become juniors for next year.

“It’s really just to keep an eye out,” Powell explained. “And especially the young female talent coming through. Obviously the only female in the Academy at the moment is Abbi [as an affiliate], so for next year just keep an eye on different females racing. Whether it’s in karting or cars, and also any other standout talent that there might be on the grid I can then obviously put that forward. And if they, especially mainly the females, join the Academy then I can help mentor them.

“Who knows [if Alpine signs anyone]. F1 academies, it’s a very privileged thing to be part of, so it’s going to be up to them if we feel that’s someone suited to the Academy and deserves a chance to be part of one of the most successful academies in F1.”

Pulling, Renault CEO Luca de Meo & Powell

Powell’s hiring is great news for women in motorsport, as it shows a team is actively searching for more female driving talent to support at a lower level and then guide up the racing ladder to one day be ready for F1. That’s also a clear marketing goal ticked off in Alpine’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) to utilise more female talent and actively plan on increasing the number of women involved in F1 teams. On top of that, if the development of female drivers within F1 young driver programmes is aided better by having a Powell-like figure than having an approach that is not specifically catered to different genders, then others in motorsport would do well to take notice.

On the flip side, Powell’s comments suggest that potentially Alpine signs nobody and this is another Rossi motion that has intent, is good PR but doesn’t then execute. Some would say just like the Academy itself…

Formula Scout spoke with FIA F3 driver and Alpine junior Martins about the 2022 change, with his position of having been a junior in the Renault days, the first year of Alpine branding and now under its revamped leadership.

“It has been really good,” Martins said. “I didn’t know Julian when he arrived with Alpine. He’s a really nice person with who I feel I created already a good relationship. We understand each other, he already saw my weaknesses, of course my strengths also, but we can already start to work on my weakness and then to be stronger and to learn more about myself.

“I think he can give me a lot of advice, so let’s see, but for the moment it has been good and I think he wants to change some stuff, some things in Alpine, where we could maybe gain more from the F1 team. More information, more support, more everything. Just to have [more integration]. So let’s see, but for the moment it’s been really good.”

There had been rumours of a change within Alpine following a year of Rossi and Sharizman’s differing outlooks, and after indecision caused by differing political views higher up in Alpine prevented Piastri and Zhou being loaned to rival F1 teams rather than lost entirely when 2022 and ’23 seats were still available, but did Martins and his fellow juniors get told there would be a change of leadership in the Academy prior to it happening?

Martins and Piastri

“Not really. I had heard rumours also, like everyone, but I was never [told] – I have been a bit surprised, to be honest, because the seasons had started already so I was kind of ‘and then championship has started, for sure he will stay’ [in my expectation].

“But then no, I got this information and this news, but I think no one was expecting this to happen now, I would say. Maybe at the end of the year, maybe, because, you know, rumours sometimes they are true, sometimes not. But when you hear them for a long time… I was surprised that it happened that early in the season.”

The new vision at Alpine did win, but it came at a cost. Not only of removing the old vision, but also potentially – as of this week – the loss of its three top Academy talents.

Last week, both Zhou and IndyCar driver Christian Lundgaard confirmed to press they have totally ended their affiliation to Alpine. Zhou is targeting a second season at Alfa Romeo and told F1 media he was glad to have avoided his old team’s current drama, while Lundgaard – who just came short of a second consecutive podium in his rookie season in the Music City Grand Prix last weekend – is closing in on a sophomore campaign with his team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Lundgaard may have come a lowly 12th in F2 last year, but the youngest of the trio is a big loss too. It is said he was the best-performing driver in Renault’s private F1 tests and his transition to IndyCar would certainly support that idea.

Piastri beat both to the F2 title but pulled the short straw, or at least Alpine did for him, as he has spent 2022 as an F1 reserve driver and was busy pursuing a race seat with another team when Fernando Alonso’s departure freed up an Alpine berth. Alpine didn’t react immediately, but then announced it was promoting Piastri for 2023. It came too late, and it looks like Piastri’s manager Mark Webber may have orchestrated a deal for him to replace Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren after he was made available to the team as reserve driver earlier this year.

Piastri, Alpine racing director David Brivio and Sharizman in 2021

Whatever the situation is, as there has been no public confirmation that a McLaren deal has been signed, it has annoyed Alpine. The team thinks it has invested a lot in Piastri, although his private test programme in a 2018 F1 car was only actually possible thanks to Zhou’s backers, and although the Renault backing after winning the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup definitely ensured Piastri’s career could actually continue into FIA F3, it’s been Webber who did the legwork to then secure a F2 seat with Prema and again in pursuing F1 opportunities.

And this year’s reserve driver role has been a job where car, not driver, development is the focus. What’s more, had it not given him the job it would have made Alpine the target of a lot of criticism having already overlooked Piastri for a race seat, and it still hasn’t given him an F1 free practice debut.

But Alpine did do a brilliant job in managing how it brought Piastri over from Australia to race in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic, and there was a vote of confidence in its approach when Red Bull Junior Team-supported driver Jack Doohan swapped over to Alpine for 2022 and told Formula Scout that “I really liked my time at Red Bull, but the opportunities Alpine was offering to me were better for me” despite the programme’s list of F1 graduates running far shorter than Red Bull’s.

Having failed to bring Piastri into F1 quick enough, does the new commercial-driven approach to the Alpine Academy have enough time to turn F2 rookies Doohan and Olli Caldwell and F3 sophomores Martins and Caio Collet into F1 contenders?

Read more
The F1 driver academy programme that must deliver soon (January 2020)
Why Alpine’s new academy is more ‘restructure’ than ‘rebrand’ (February 2021)

The post The Alpine Academy has a winning vision, but lost its drivers appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Sauber Group

By scoring a point on his debut, F1 2022’s only rookie continued a trend he showed on his way up the single-seater ladder. But there’s a part of that trend he now needs to avoid repeating, as Peter Allen explains

Guanyu Zhou is now officially a Formula 1 racing driver – and now officially known as Zhou Guanyu as he begins life in a championship that is evidently far keener to capitalise upon his nationality than the junior series in which he learnt his trade.

While the expectations and excitement around the only rookie on the 2022 grid are probably quite high back home in China, they have been rather modest elsewhere. That’s natural with a driver who ‘only’ finished third in Formula 2 last year in his third season in the category, behind two drivers with less experience in the championship. It’s impossible to look at Zhou’s place in F1 outside of the context of Oscar Piastri missing out, because that’s exactly the context in which it has come about. But Zhou, like pretty much any driver, deserves every chance to prove that he belongs.

His debut in Bahrain last weekend was certainly a positive first step in that regard. Expectations were low, but it would be fair to say that Zhou did well to exceed them nonetheless. Reaching the second phase of qualifying was already better than most would probably have predicted: if you were to pick the five drivers most likely to fall at the first hurdle, the sole debutant would surely have been among them and especially when he’s driving for a team that has been a common fixture in the drop zone in recent times.

The same is true of him scoring a point in the race. It’s not something many would have forecasted even after qualifying, and certainly not before the weekend had begun. Zhou didn’t hide his own delight and surprise at both results, and rightly so.

“I am so happy, I am speechless,” he said. “My biggest dream was to race in F1, then to score points and tonight we did both: being on the grid before the race, with the other 19 drivers, was crazy enough, but the race itself was so intense. It wasn’t so physically, but rather mentally: I had an issue at the start, the car went into anti-stall at turn one and then I knew I would have to do something special to recover to the top 10.”

There are, obviously, several factors that made those results easier for him to achieve than might have been anticipated in advance. The Alfa Romeo team has clearly come out of the blocks with a strong package for the new regulations, evidenced by Valtteri Bottas qualifying and finishing sixth. That meant Zhou had better equipment to get into Q2 and finish in the points than many, in particular those driving for Mercedes engine customers McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams. In the race, the late retirements for three of the four Red Bull entries further eased his path.

Still, the Alfa did not look quite as strong as Ferrari-powered counterpart Haas considering the way Kevin Magnussen jumped in at short notice and beat Bottas to fifth in both qualifying and the race, and yet Zhou was able to get the better of his old Formula 3 team-mate and rival Mick Schumacher in the second Haas to finish 10th – repassing him on fresh tyres having already been ahead prior to the late safety car.

Bahrain gave us an idea, but judging where each team truly sits in the pecking order with their new cars will remain unclear for a while, especially given the rapid rate of development that’s expected. That means team-mates will be used to benchmark drivers even more than usual and in Bottas, Zhou has a very tough benchmark indeed.

In Q2, Zhou was the best part of two seconds adrift, although if he hadn’t fallen foul of the stricter track limits enforcement and had his best time deleted, that gap would have been a more respectable 0.8 seconds. In the race, clutch issues led both Alfas to fall backwards at the start, but Zhou then appeared able to keep up with Bottas impressively well through traffic, even if a gap had opened up by the finish.

But arguably more impressive than Zhou’s results or his speed was his composure across a weekend that didn’t feature any of the typical ‘rookie errors’ that so often mar a driver’s debut in the big league. There were elements that helped him in that regard, but it was overall a positive debut and one Zhou probably came out of with more credit than he went into it with.

Belying a lack of experience to quickly get up to speed after stepping up to a new category is nothing new for Zhou, though. In many ways it was not a surprise, because it was something he’s made a habit of in his junior single-seater career.

Photo: ACI Sport

Even in Formula 4 as a newcomer to car racing, Zhou was almost immediately successful. OK, his actual debut came in a one-off Winter Trophy held at Adria where he scored a brace of third places from a modest 10-car field. Then his first full year of racing started with an ADAC F4 round at Oschersleben where he struggled. But when his main programme in the Italian championship got underway, he scored a pole position in the first round at Vallelunga, though team-mate Ralf Aron – with a year’s car racing under his belt – won the two main races. In round two at Monza, Zhou won all three races.

But it was in Formula 3 and Formula 2 where Zhou’s tendency to adapt quickly stands out from his seven-year junior single-seater career.

The decision for him to move into the FIA F3 European Championship after only one year in F4 was a surprise, especially as it wasn’t possible for him to remain with Prema, joining Motopark instead. Grid sizes were down from the excesses of the previous years, standing at a more reasonable 21 for the opening round, but this was still a very competitive series – and one without reversed grids, too.

But Zhou still made the podium in just the second race at Paul Ricard, the first rookie to do so that season. He was on it again in the next round at the Hungaroring. That weekend was dominated by rookies, but Zhou had at least started off just as competitively as team-mate Joel Eriksson and his former team-mate Aron.

Three seasons elapsed in European F3 before Zhou made the move up to F2 for 2019. But this was still a big step up and a relatively unusual one, bypassing GP3 (or the FIA F3 Championship as it became that year) and the experience it would have provided of the Pirelli tyres and other intricacies of racing on the F1 support bill.

Photo: FIA F3 Europe / Suer

Zhou’s rookie season didn’t show any ill effects from that, though. His impact was not quite as instant in results terms as it had been in F3, although 10th in his first feature race and fourth in his first sprint in Bahrain was still impressive, especially in terms of race pace considering he’d qualified 17th. It only took until round three at Barcelona for him to finish on the podium (in a feature race, which he led, no less) and until the mid-season trip to Silverstone to claim a pole position, and he ended the year as the highest-scoring rookie in seventh overall.

His early F2 form exceeded his own expectations, as he told Formula Scout at Silverstone the day before taking pole.

“The expectation was just scoring OK points in the beginning and trying to step on the podium in the end of the season, but we’ve done that already in round three,” he said. “We knew we had the pace but the race is different. I’m just happy that I’m getting used to the racing quite quickly, also the car. I’m still learning the tyres each race, because the tyre management is always the key for the races, but so far, so good.”

His team boss, Virtuosi Racing co-owner Andy Roche, also admitted to being positively surprised. “The target was possibly a win or a podium in race two this year,” he said a couple of rounds later. “We’ve exceeded that very early in the year. He just needs a win under his belt now, and I think it’s coming. It’s just tyre management really. There’s not much to come, a little tweak and it will come very quickly.”

Roche engineered future grand prix winners Juan Pablo Montoya and Mark Webber in F2 forerunner International F3000, and pointed to Zhou’s ability to learn quickly as a key strength.

“Everything he hears or sees, he soaks it all up and he can act on it,” he said. “A lot of drivers, it doesn’t compute, it gets forgotten, whereas he will work and work and work until he gets it, and I think that’s going to be his strength. He learns so quickly, and once it’s learnt once, it’s learnt, it doesn’t get forgotten, and that will be a strength for him for sure.”

Photo: Jerry Andre / LAT / FIA F2

The ability to adapt quickly to faster machinery – whether it’s in debut tests or early races – is a key indicator of potential in young drivers as they progress up the ladder. It’s a skill that’s marked out the likes of Charles Leclerc and George Russell, both race winners on their debut F3 weekends together at Silverstone in 2015.

A caveat over Zhou in this regard is that his funding has allowed him plentiful testing compared to some of his rivals before he’s made his debut in a particular category – even in F1, where he has benefited from extensive private running across the past two years with Renault/Alpine. But it would be unfair to put his impressive rookie season performances down to that alone, just as it would be with Lando Norris.

Where the doubts lie with Zhou in contrast to F1’s top-rated young stars is in the other trend that stands out from his junior career: His struggle to kick on from those early signs of promise and continue striding forward as he gains more and more experience.

This too arguably goes right back to the start of his career in cars, for his aforementioned round two hat-trick at Monza was not followed by any further victories, even though second place in the final standings was a respectable enough result.

Then, in F3, his two podiums in the first two rounds were not followed up by any more trips to the overall rostrum that season, while his rookie team-mates Eriksson and Niko Kari went on to win a race each and finish ahead in the standings. That’s not to say his first season as a whole as a disappointment, but a return to the Prema fold for his second season didn’t lead to the marked improvement you might expect. OK, so this was a year in which the team’s lead drivers Maximilian Gunther and Callum Ilott were beaten in the title race by Carlin’s Norris and Motopark’s Eriksson, but Zhou never looked to be in their league.

Photo: FIA F3 Europe

Staying with Prema for another season in 2018 did bring an obvious step forward in performance, with Zhou breaking his win duck in the season-opening race in Pau before claiming pole positions at Zandvoort and Spa – at which point he was only one point off the championship lead and on more than twice the points of eventual champion Schumacher.

But Zhou was taken out of that Spa race by early contact with Schumacher, who went on to claim his first win. He struggled through the next few rounds, as did team-mates Aron and Marcus Armstrong, while Prema’s other drivers Schumacher and Robert Shwartzman suddenly hit top form. A return to the top step in the final round at Hockenheim wasn’t enough to stop Zhou finishing eighth in the standings for the second year in a row, albeit with a greater points tally.

In F2, Roche was hardly the only one convinced that Zhou’s first win must be around the corner as his rookie campaign moved into its second half. That it didn’t wasn’t a huge deal, but it set a clear target for him once the 2020 season finally got underway in Austria in July that year. In cars nobody had driven since pre-season testing four months earlier, Zhou laid down a marker by qualifying on pole by almost half a second and looked well on his way to that breakthrough victory in the feature race only to suffer a mechanical failure.

His season never recovered from that disappointment. While new team-mate Ilott began to set the pace and that man Schumacher put on another late charge to snatch the title, it wasn’t until a shortened sprint race in round 10 of 12 in Sochi that Zhou finally got his first win. Sixth in the standings was only one place and 11.5 points better than 2019.

Zhou started his third season in F2 how he started his third in F3, by taking a big win first time out (in the Bahrain feature race) and leading much of the early running in the championship fight. But just as in F3, several incidents in the middle of the year cost him ground – and unlike in F3, this time they were mostly his fault, like his spins on lap one of Silverstone race one and on his way to the grid of the opener in Sochi. His qualifying form also slipped slightly – not by a lot, but enough to make a difference when Piastri was starting an unbeaten streak of pole positions converted into feature race wins.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Finishing third in the points was perhaps the best that was possible for a Virtuosi driver against an increasingly strong Prema attack, but some high-profile slip-ups didn’t help the general perception that Zhou had not maximised everything in his control. And it was general perception that he most needed to win over once Alfa Romeo and the Sauber company that operates its F1 team was convinced to take him on.

It was perhaps significant that it was Schumacher that Zhou got the better of in their fight to score a maiden F1 point, because they are perhaps polar opposites as drivers based upon their junior single-seater careers – where they were often competing against each other. Schumacher’s tendency to struggle in a rookie season before making a big step forward in his second year has already been well-chronicled, while the evidence is that Zhou gets quickly up to speed as a rookie but stagnates rather thereafter.

If the Haas and the Alfa Romeo cars are going to remain closely matched this season, the contest between F1 sophomore Schumacher and newcomer Zhou could be particularly interesting to watch. Both have some work to do to convince their doubters that they are good enough to have the long F1 careers that their commercial attractiveness could guarantee them – especially if they remain on the grid while the likes of Piastri and potentially Theo Pourchaire (should he do the job in F2 this season) are frozen out.

But while Schumacher is now into his second season in F1, and therefore would be expected to start unlocking his potential, he is having to drive a completely new car after the overhaul of the technical regulations for 2022. To a degree, F1 drivers have to be able to adapt to a new car every single season, but the philosophy and driving style of those cars usually remains similar from one year to the next – so long as you don’t move teams. That’s not the case for Schumacher this year, though, creating a more level playing field between him and rookie Zhou. And perhaps what we saw in Bahrain was the same tendency from their junior careers for Zhou to be the faster out of the box.

Now Zhou needs to kick on, something that’s not going to be easy with the benchmark that will be set for him by Bottas. Bahrain provided a very familiar environment for him to make his debut, with a track he’s started nine F2 races on before and conducted numerous tests at across F2 and F1, but he’ll face new challenges in the coming weeks like Melbourne’s Albert Park, a place with a reputation for being unkind to F1 debutants.

We don’t exactly have to look too hard to see that scoring points on an F1 debut in Bahrain doesn’t necessarily lead to a great first campaign. Yuki Tsunoda was labelled “the best rookie F1 has had for years” by none other than Ross Brawn after finishing ninth in Bahrain one year ago, but a crash in qualifying for the next round at Imola was the beginning of a tough period for the AlphaTauri driver.

Zhou will be keen to avoid that and one thing he has in his favour is vastly more experience compared to Tsunoda, who was fast-tracked from F4 to F1 in a little over two years with only a few months of F1-specific preparation.

But it won’t take much for the pressure to ramp up like it did on Tsunoda last year, and how Zhou will deal with that is still a major question mark. How much has pressure played a role in the trends of his career so far, when he’s surpassed the modest expectations of his rookie campaigns and then not lived up to what was expected after that?

He has admitted that the pressure did get to him in F2 last year when there were an increased number of eyes on his performances amidst talk of him going to F1. He’s been well aware of those criticising him and keen to prove them wrong, and saying there will be less pressure now he’s in F1 seems optimistic.

For now, expectations on Zhou are certainly lower than when he was being touted as an F2 title favourite, but how he handles the pressure that is bound to come might just define whether he can this time make the most of the potential that’s long been clear.

Further reading
Who was really the fastest driver in F2 2021?
Five young drivers Alfa Romeo should support in its Stellantis era (July 2021)
The F2 juggernauts who adopted each other’s strengths in 2021
Why East Asia struggles to produce F1 drivers (July 2018)

The post The F2 and F3 trend Zhou could be repeating in F1 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

The short-lived three-race format put more emphasis on scoring points in sprint races, but then improved qualifying form from the champion meant feature race form won him the title

With an unprecedented five poles in a row and four feature race wins, Oscar Piastri’s scale of improvement from his 2020 FIA Formula 3 title to take the F2 crown as a rookie in 2021 was simply monumental.

His upturn in qualifying form, after not making the front row once in F3, made him the driver to beat on one-lap pace in F2 this year and that’s no easy feat given how difficult the Friday sessions are.

The single free practice session takes place in wildly different track conditions to qualifying, provides only one or two laps of truly representative running if the softest tyre compound is used (which is not usually the case), and both sessions are often interrupted by yellow and red flags.

The poles themselves are impressive, and Piastri began his season with a seventh place in Bahrain qualifying. That made him the second highest placed rookie behind MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor in fifth, while in Monaco it was another rookie in Theo Pourchaire (who did contest the final two rounds of 2020 in Bahrain) who outpaced Piastri by 0.458 seconds to take pole. Baku also went a rookie’s way, in this case Liam Lawson who led a Hitech GP one-two while Piastri was in third.

That meant his average grid position over the season was 2.3, significantly higher than next-best Guanyu Zhou who averaged 4.6. Compared to 2020 it’s a big leap too, as last year’s champion Mick Schumacher had an average starting spot of 7.9 and his closest rival Callum Ilott topped the table with 3.4. Christian Lundgaard was the top rookie with 6.8.

Grid positions don’t factor in dominant performances like Pourchaire’s in Monaco, nor the split group qualifying format used there, so using absolute pace is a better way of seeing who was fastest on average over the 2021 season. And this only makes Piastri’s performances look all the more impressive.

Qualifying ‘supertimes’

The post Who was really the fastest driver in Formula 2? appeared first on Formula Scout.

10. Victor Martins

No change • F3’s top rookie and most spectacular racer

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

FIA Formula 3’s rookie of the year was a driver who gained a lot of popularity in 2021 with his racecraft, and as an Alpine junior showcased why he deserved to be back on that programme. It’s been a very decent year for Victor Martins.

How he and team-mate (and former title rival) Caio Collet would work as a team at MP Motorsport was a curious subplot to this season, but they proved to be a fine pairing. They helped bring the team forward, particularly after a mid-season slump, into regular podium contention and even to a race win in Martins’ hands.

• Feature: Why Alpine’s new academy is more ‘restructure’ than ‘rebrand’

It was the Frenchman who spearheaded that charge, and he certainly was the most complete of all the rookies this year. That was somewhat expected given his experience coming in, but was no guarantee given MP’s middling performances in the past. Without poor rounds at the Red Bull Ring and Hungaroring, he probably would have finished third in the points, ahead of rookies with better equipment and experienced drivers (some of whom also had better equipment).

He was the most exciting driver to watch in the reversed-grid races in particular, and his charge from fifth on the grid to finally win one at Zandvoort was spectacular, methodical and very well-managed. A very strong year once again.

9. Liam Lawson

Up 4 • Couldn’t replicate DTM title bid in F2 but was outstanding on his day

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Despite dovetailing Formula 2 with DTM (the latter of which is not recognised in this ranking, but he was mega there either way and his title loss was a massive injustice), Lawson was absolutely one of the stars of the year and one of the most exciting drivers in the junior ranks.

He produced one of the overtakes on the year with an utterly outrageous lunge on eventual champion Oscar Piastri at Monaco’s Rascasse corner of all places in the wet, only to lose the win due to a technical infringement. That was a fine way to sum up the Red Bull junior’s F2 season, really. Audacious, rapid, not fully polished but also luckless all at the same time.

Winning on debut in fine fashion was his sole triumph of the year, and that he notched up just two further podiums doesn’t do justice to the speed that Lawson showcased this year. Hitech GP’s form ebbed and flowed quite wildly, and that could be seen in Lawson’s results. The one event the team was at its strongest – Baku – was a proper weekend-long scrap between he and team-mate Juri Vips. But his fellow Red Bull junior took the spoils in a rare weekend where he had luck for a change.

While his elbows out approach comes with its benefits and drawbacks, there is absolutely no denying that is is exhilarating to watch and once Lawson polishes off some of those rough edges further, he is going to be simply awesome wherever he ends up racing long-term and a serious 2022 F2 title threat should he return and have a bit more luck going his way. He was one of 2021’s stars whose results did not reflect his speed and talent.

8. Ollie Bearman

New entry • First driver to do the F4 double in Italy and Germany

Photo: ADAC

Photo: ADAC

In the space of under eight months, Bearman has taken 18 wins, become the first driver to win both the ADAC and Italian F4 titles in the same season, been selected to join the Ferrari Driver Academy and signed for Prema for his graduation to F3. And he may yet add the coveted Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award to his packed trophy cabinet for the year.

Four wins in the opening two ADAC F4 rounds convinced him and his team, Van Amersfoort Racing, to contest the full season there in addition to the intended main campaign in Italy. From June to mid-September, he was virtually unstoppable, winning 14 times on track, although he lost one of his Imola triumphs after post-race scrutineering claimed to have found an engine irregularity.

• Feature: How Bearman rose “to find a new limit” in F4

He came under more pressure after the summer break, particularly in Germany where the pendulum swung back in Tim Tramnitz’s direction. Bearman held his nerve, closing out the title at the final round at the Nurburgring despite a scare in race one.

His huge points lead in Italy proved unassailable, not least as the remaining wins were shared between six drivers. With the title already in the bag, his performance at the season finale at Monza was sublime. That weekend highlighted his ability to deliver storming opening laps, to pull off aggressive but controlled passes and to deliver come rain or shine.

• Podcast: The route Bearman took to his momentous F4 title double

Somehow, he also found time in his crowded schedule to take in three rounds of the GB3 series in Britain, scoring one race win and outqualifying champion-to-be Zak O’Sullivan each time. The step from F4 direct to FIA F3 has proved a big hurdle for many top names (Theo Pourchaire being a notable exception) but Bearman graduates with historically the series’ leading team and could be a title contender in his rookie season.

7. Guanyu Zhou

Up 19 • Fought for F2 title and secured dream F1 drive

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Most drivers on this list dream of Formula 1. Zhou has the unique distinction as the one to have achieved it. Others might have deserved it more, but Zhou’s performances during 2021 were absolutely crucial – alongside his commercial attractiveness – in convincing Frederic Vasseur and Alfa Romeo Racing that he was worthy of a seat. Rightly or wrongly, winning the Asian F3 title at the start of the year all-but secured his FIA superlicence, but he still had to ensure a forward trajectory in F2, which he did.

One can say Zhou was only doing what he should have been doing in his third season in F2. Actually, it’s arguably what he should have done in 2020 off the back of his fine rookie campaign the year before. But the nature of modern F2 makes that easier said than done – just look at Zhou’s Alpine Academy stablemate Christian Lundgaard, who was more fancied coming into the year – and especially so with the added curveball of the quirky 2021 format.

• Feature: Has Zhou shown the qualities to be a success in F1?

The pressure was on Zhou and he generally rose to it well, starting with victory in the Bahrain feature race from pole, while his triumph over Piastri at Silverstone was excellent. But sprint races made up two thirds of the season and Zhou was less impressive in these than his rivals, his progress out of the mid-pack less efficient and making costly errors like spinning on the first lap at Silverstone or even on his way to the grid in Sochi.

Even if a driver as near-perfect as Piastri didn’t exist and Zhou finished up closer to the championship, there would still be a few lingering doubts. But it was a decent step forward and enough for him to achieve his goal.

In many ways his three-year F2 stint replicated his three years in F3, with impressive speed out of the box as a rookie but a lack of convincing progress in results thereafter when the expectations increased, and perhaps this offers the biggest clue as to how he’ll get on in F1.

6. Robert Shwartzman

No change • Became F2 runner-up in his team-mate’s shadow

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

There were aspects of Shwartzman’s impressive rookie F2 campaign in 2020 that could have done with a bit of work for 2021. Qualifying in particular was the huge elephant in the room. He got there eventually, but it all came way too late to stop his Prema team-mate Piastri, who just kept improving.

It looked like he may have had it all figured out early on after in-season testing, topping his qualifying group in Monaco, but then it slipped away from him again until the final two rounds where he finally cracked it (while still missing that extra little bit to Piastri).

Those qualifying struggles did allow him to capitalise on the many sprint races, where he won twice and often looked most at home. But just two podiums (including the brief half-points race in Saudi Arabia) in feature races meant a serious title challenge was never on even if he finished in the top seven in each of them. That was simply never going to be enough in a season where one driver was smashing in podiums or wins in all bar one of the rounds.

Where Shwartzman was so strong, however, was in race pace. But his lowly qualifying positions left the Ferrari junior simply too much work to do. It was a disappointing return for the pre-season title favourite for many. He didn’t look entirely settled early on, but looked much more relaxed later in the year – which is when his performances became generally stronger and more complete. A very strong season in general, with his metronomic consistency serving him very well, but ultimately lacking that something special that he used to brilliant effect in FIA F3 to take the title there.

5. Jack Doohan

New entry • Battled for F3 title in breakthrough year

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

It’s fair to say that in another year, Doohan may well have been F3 champion rather than runner-up. He came into 2021 arguably as an outsider, joining Trident. A step up from his low-key maiden season was expected, but challenging Prema seemed like a dream.

But Doohan made that dream a reality. He was consistently quick, with the best qualifying average in the field, and was more than capable of turning those strong qualifying performances into results come race three when the biggest points were handed out.

However, the season was 20 races long, not seven. Doohan may well have been the best driver when taking into account the ‘traditional’ races, but he struggled to do battle in the reversed-grid races. This was where his championship challenge slipped away from him, as he frequently finished outside the points in the opening race of the the weekend. This was a season that rewarded not just being quick, but also racecraft, and that was where Doohan fell behind Dennis Hauger in the championship.

There should also be something said about Doohan’s F2 outings in the final races of the year. He was very quick straight out of the box and not afraid to get into the fight. He took two points finishes from six races, and joined Piastri on the front row in Abu Dhabi, giving us a taste of what could be to come next year when he links up with Virtuosi Racing.

4. Kyle Kirkwood

Re-entry (27th in ’19) • Completed perfect Road to Indy rise with Lights crown

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Indy Lights had its strongest field in many years with two batches of Indy Pro 2000 graduates and Kirkwood was by far the standout of the lot. Andretti Autosport may not have had the strongest overall package this year, and yet Kirkwood still delivered the title that was expected before the aborted 2020 season.

These are just some of the reasons behind Kirkwood featuring considerably higher on this list than any Lights driver before him. It’s entirely justified as well. He was mighty consistent, won races he had no right in winning and produced one of the best passes of the year (a double outside sweep on David Malukas and Linus Lundqvist – the two next-best in the series this year) at Portland in one of the best drives of the year.

• Feature: The strengths that can make the Road to Indy’s GOAT an IndyCar force

The latter point showcases why Kirkwood is so special, why he is a massive coup for the legendary A.J. Foyt and his eponymous IndyCar team and why every single team out there should be trying to get his signature for 2023.

Kirkwood won at Laguna Seca, in the dry, by a scarcely-believable 26 seconds. In a one-make series as strong as Lights was this year, he made the difference. There was no Andretti secret or anything like that, it was all him, and it left his rivals flabbergasted and the IndyCar world with an eyebrow well and truly raised.

He’s obliterated records, destroyed all in his path and concluded a remarkable junior career with a fantastic title despite seriously strong competition.

3. Dennis Hauger

Re-entry (21st in ’19) • F3 champion was a complete performer

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Hauger produced one of the most emphatic returns to form across the junior ranks in 2021, bouncing back from a fairly miserable year to crush his rivals and continue Prema’s streak of FIA F3 drivers’ titles.

Even now, several months after the season, it’s a little unclear as to whether Prema was still dominant as in the past, or whether Trident closed right up or even overtook it in terms of performance. The likely scenario is that the form was circuit and condition-dependant but, irrespective of it, Hauger clearly was the driver of the year in F3.

• Podcast: Hauger on how he bounced back to win FIA F3

The funky one-off format made it trickier in F3 than in F2 for a driver to dominate, with 12 drivers being flipped for the reversed-grid races, and Hauger made use of those races so much better than his opposition. He regularly made progress in those, often picking up useful and solid points, before repeating the process in the next race.

It was in one of those races, Austria race one, where he produced one of his best wins of the year. Starting 12th after claiming pole in qualifying, Hauger carved his way through the pack, waited for a collision between the leaders (as often seems the case at the Red Bull Ring), and stormed to victory in one of the best charges of the year.

His emphatic destruction of the opposition at Zandvoort in qualifying and the Sunday race, where he looked his most animated all year, was also superb to watch. His Red Bull Ring race three loss goes against him somewhat, but he picked up the points when it mattered. Despite the late charge by Trident, Hauger sealed the title with one race to spare. It was beautifully managed.

2. Theo Pourchaire

Up 2 • Proved potential in F2 beyond Monaco magnificence

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Pourchaire’s pole and feature race win in Monaco wasn’t only one of the junior single-seater performances of the year but also in recent memory: on his debut at a track where skill and bravery always plays such a role when past experience is absent, in the second weekend of his first full F2 campaign, and aged just 17 years and 275 days – making him the youngest ever winner at that level.

It couldn’t possibly be dismissed as a fluke, but neither does one weekend make a year. But Pourchaire showed his precocious ability at plenty of other times, even though the calendar provided a limited number of different opportunities to show off.

• Feature: The youngest ever winners in F1’s primary feeder series

He was the third-best qualifier on average, very close behind Zhou, and second only to Piastri on actual one-lap pace. After his pole in Monaco, he qualified fourth in Baku and third in Sochi, where he chased Piastri home in the feature race – finishing within two seconds of the eventual champion.

At that point he looked like the only guy in Piastri’s league, and was perhaps still a title contender if he could keep up such form. He would qualify third again in Jeddah, only to stall at the start (he’s far from the first to stall an F2 car, and was unlucky to be hit so hard). He could be forgiven for ‘only’ qualifying sixth when he got back in the car just five days later, and he still raced decently to fourth.

His feature race points haul was fourth-best (or third-best discounting the Jeddah race that lasted just five laps). A low sprint race tally cost him in the overall standings, but he rarely benefitted from the reversed grid because he usually qualified high up and finished relatively far forward in race one. Only Shwartzman and Piastri made up more points from their starting positions in these races, and he won from fourth at Monza.

Overall, Pourchaire was undoubtedly eclipsed in his achievements as a rookie by Piastri, but was very inexperienced to be performing at this level, in only his fourth year of car racing and second out of F4. There’s also over two years in age between the pair, and it does show.

For that reason, Vasseur is correct to say his protege is not ready for F1. He needs to show more maturity inside and outside of the car, and manage a title bid at this level with all the pressure and expectation that comes with it. And that is certainly not a given in the complex world of F2. But he’ll start as the favourite in 2022 given how good he already looked this year.

1. Oscar Piastri

Up 4 • Became peerless to win the F2 crown at the first attempt 

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Piastri came into F2 having won back-to-back titles in Formula Regional and F3, but there was little evidence from the way he won the latter in particular to make him a title favourite in the way previous F2 rookies like Charles Leclerc or George Russell had been. In the end, his 2021 triumph became easily the most impressive of the lot such was the way he improved over the campaign to stand head-and-shoulders above his competition.

It was the racecraft that served Piastri so well in F3 that had him right in contention from the opening round, making the most of the sprint race-heavy format to take away as many points as possible from each weekend. He knew where to prioritise that point-scoring where necessary, but that didn’t mean that he was tame in wheel-to-wheel battle. Tangle with Dan Ticktum in the Bahrain feature race aside, he knew when to pick his battles. That he got taken out when he increased the risk factor in his first race after winning the title simply proved how expertly he had been managing that when it mattered before.

• Feature: How Piastri ascended to another level in 2021

Qualifying had been the big concern at the start of the year given his lack of front-row starts in F3 and Prema’s own one-lap struggles in F2 in 2020. But this became the focus of the in-season test at Barcelona and the results were immediately evident for Piastri while Shwartzman continued to struggle on conventional tracks in the middle of the year.

Piastri couldn’t convert his first pole at Silverstone, but he was never beaten again in qualifying over the rest of the year and never to the chequered flag in feature races either. By the end of the year, Prema looked unbeatable in qualifying and race trim with both cars once more, and it was Piastri that made full use of this rather than his undoubtedly talented team-mate.

The ill-thought-out F2 calendar meant Piastri’s full potential was only realised once every seat on the F1 grid had already been filled. It’s not simply the back-to-back-to-back titles that should entitle him to a drive: his full package of outright speed, sublime racecraft and calm maturity should have him near the top of any team’s shopping list regardless of experience. It’s not easy to see where the chance might come in 2023, but something is badly wrong if it doesn’t.

The Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2021 has been compiled by Alejandro Alonso Lopez, Bethonie Waring, Cian Brittle, Craig Woollard, Ida Wood, Peter Allen and Roger Gascoigne. Click here to view the rest of the list.

You can listen to our podcast debating how we came to determine the top 50 order, as well as our big review of the year, below. The podcast can also be found on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2021: 10-1 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Formula Motorsport Limited

What was expected to be the most open year of F2’s modern era was shaken up mid-season as Prema’s Oscar Piastri dominated, and 2021’s event format and stretched calendar made top 10 picks as tricky as ever

Ultimately, Formula Scout has come up with its list, with a unanimous pick for the top spot after analysing all of the various data and taking into consideration the respective performances of the teams as well as the drivers’ individual highs and lows. Each writer gave their top 10 and the average of those forms the basis of this list.

After the Abu Dhabi season finale we discussed season on our podcast, which you can listen to below or find on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Virtuosi Racing’s Felipe Drugovich never really seemed to gel with the team’s on-track package after his highly-anticipated move there off the back of a brilliant 2020 with MP Motorsport (where he returns in 2022), but there were flashes that put him perilously close to making this list. Bent Viscaal single-handedly putting Trident on the podium twice and into ninth in the teams’ championship gained plaudits from one of our writers too.

However, there was a lack of love for race winner Marcus Armstrong (DAMS), and podium finishers Christian Lundgaard (ART Grand Prix), David Beckmann (Charouz Racing System and Campos Racing) and Roy Nissany (DAMS) to name but a few drivers with silverware from 2021 but no spot on our top 10.

Key Percentage of team’s points scored (TP), Average qualifying position (QA), Feature race points (FR), Sprint race points (SR), Laps led (LL)

10. Jehan Daruvala INDIA Carlin
7th in standings, 113pts (2 wins, 1 fastest lap, 5 podiums) – TP 41.5%, QA 7.9 (8th), FR 42 (8th), SR 71 (5th), LL 63 (3rd)

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Cian Brittle (8th): After being so soundly beaten by Yuki Tsunoda last season, an improvement this year was expected for Daruvala, especially after he finished 2020 so strongly with a new engine. Yet this season seemed to be the opposite for the Red Bull junior, as he started well and faded away in the final rounds. He only managed three points finishes across the final three rounds, being outscored by team-mate Dan Ticktum by 24 points across those races when it had only been a 22.5-point deficit across the first five rounds. While this wasn’t a dismantling to the same extent as last year, he struggled to match Ticktum, specifically on race pace. He was also largely outperformed by Red Bull stablemates Liam Lawson and Juri Vips, so further improvement is needed going into his third season if, as testing has suggested, Dennis Hauger and Ayumu Iwasa expand the pool of Red Bull juniors in F2.

Peter Allen (9th): Daruvala made a step forward in his second F2 season, but not of the scale required to be the proper title threat he needed to be if he’s to be considered a serious F1 prospect on merit. Again he was second-best in Carlin’s line-up, unable to match Ticktum’s podium habit. Qualifying consistency was an obvious downfall: he was second to Piastri at both Monza and Sochi but was outside the top eight at five of the other six rounds. The redeeming feature of his season were his attacking drives in the sprint races where he made up more points from his starting spots than anyone aside from the potent Prema pair, although his two race wins came from the front row. More of that could be possible with his anticipated move to Prema next year, even if his Red Bull junior status is looking hard to justify at this point.

9. Ralph Boschung SWITZERLAND Campos Racing
10th in standings, 59.5pts (1 fastest lap, 2 podiums) – TP 66.5%, QA 7.9 (9th), FR 27.5 (11th), SR 32 (12th), LL 2 (13th)

Bethonie Waring (6th): Anyone who listens to the podcast knows Boschung has been one of the stars of the season to me. When making this list, one of the important factors to me wasn’t just how well they did, but how well they did compared to what I was expecting, and Boschung more than exceeded expectations. For sure, there is plenty of room for improvements and consistency was not his strong point, but when he was scoring they were decent points finishes. He didn’t appear out of his comfort zone when fighting with title contenders and more than deserved his two end-of-year podiums.

Alejandro Alonso Lopez (8th): The 2021 season was Boschung’s best to date in F2. The Swiss driver extracted the most out of his Campos-run car to qualify in the top seven in six out of eight rounds. His race results also improved considerably compared to previous years. Even though he got two podiums in the last two rounds, the highlight of his season has to be Monaco. Keeping the car away from the barriers in a very slippery track was key to scoring points in all three races. The negatives came at Monza and Sochi where two self-inflicted mistakes while running comfortably inside the top 10 prevented him from scoring more points. It will be interesting to see what he and Campos can achieve togerher in 2022, as both team and driver seem really comfortable with each other.

8. Richard Verschoor NETHERLANDS MP Motorsport/Charouz Racing System
11th in standings, 56pts (1 win, 1 podium) – TP 73.3% & 3.6%, QA 12.9 (15th), FR 30 (10th), SR 26 (15th), LL 32 (10th)

AA (5th): Verschoor has been without any doubts one of the sensations of this year’s midfield. He shined in the season opener, qualifying fifth and finishing fifth and fourth in races two and three, and his talent would be noticeable across the rest of the year. Silverstone was a strong weekend too, controlling race two from reversed-grid pole and coming very close to finishing third in the feature race. Not having his seat secured never seemed to be a problem for the Dutch, who was always fully focused when he was on track. It is also worth mentioning how quick he adapted to Charouz’s car in Abu Dhabi, after spending most of his single-seater career with MP Motorsport before the budget dried out with two F2 rounds to go.

PA (8th): Verschoor was unofficial champion of what I’m calling ‘Rookie Class B’, an underdog quartet of Dutch and German drivers who made deserved steps up from Formula 3 despite their lack of certain funding. Verschoor’s MP seat was the least certain of all, officially confirmed only on a round-by-round basis. But already on debut in Bahrain he qualified fifth – the top rookie – and finished the feature race fourth having led with five laps to go. At Silverstone, without the benefit of testing, he was similarly strong. Consistency was missing but the Macau Grand Prix winner showed his class and didn’t deserve to be bought out of his seat while he was still inside the championship top 10. Even when he returned with Charouz at the final round he came from 16th to score the team’s only feature race point of the season.

7. Juri Vips ESTONIA Hitech GP
6th in standings, 120pts (2 wins, 1 fastest lap, 6 podiums) – TP 53.8%, QA 9.9 (12th), FR 43 (7th), SR 77 (4th), LL 49 (6th)

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Craig Woollard (5th): The sheer volume of bad luck that Vips had in 2021 means his championship position is not reflective of his performances. This bracket outside of the top one or two down to the end of the top eight is wildly close and arguments can be made to place any one of these drivers anywhere. While Baku was extraordinary in how he traded blows (and won) with team-mate Liam Lawson, the rest of the time just something seemed to be going wrong. Therefore, it’s a bit tricky to judge how good Vips was this year. But the feeling was that he lacked a little bit in outright one-lap pace and in the same flair as some of the rookies (Vips arguably kind of came in as a half-rookie), even if the consistent speed and number of solid results he produced was pretty impressive.

BW (7th): Big things were expected from Vips for 2021 and, though they materialised, it wasn’t quite as much as anyone was expecting. He was a lot like Pourchaire in that when the weekend came together it really came together. But he wasn’t as good at making the most out of the more difficult rounds than he needed to be if he wanted to challenge for the title. Baku was definitely his weekend of the year and where he really seemed to be on top of the format, getting the most out of every race. Unfortunately that wasn’t something that continued, and there doesn’t seem to be another weekend where everything slotted together. That said, next year he should definitely be one to watch for the title, especially as we return to the old format.

AA (10th): As Bethonie said, more was expected from Vips as he was the next in the queue for a AlphaTauri Formula 1 seat coming into 2021. Hitech GP’s car didn’t have the raw speed it had in 2020, and that held the Estonian back in some races. However, when the car proved to be a rocket ship on the streets of Baku he didn’t miss the chance to claim two convincing wins. That, together with a strong central part of the season, pushed him to sixth in the standings. Perhaps Vips won’t go down in history as one of those who put the biggest show on track, but he has been definitely a solid performer this year.

6. Liam Lawson NEW ZEALAND Hitech GP
9th in standings, 103pts (1 win, 1 pole, 2 fastest laps, 3 podiums) – TP 46.2%, QA 7.6 (7th), FR 38 (9th), SR 61 (7th), LL 56 (5th)

Roger Gascoigne (5th): Though he rather lost his way thereafter, Lawson was arguably the standout driver in the first three rounds. He could have had two podiums to go with his winning debut in Bahrain, and a minor technical infringement cost him a hard-fought victory at Monaco after he had pulled off a sublime pass on Piastri. In Baku he was stunningly quick, gaining 14 places in 10 laps in race two, having been pitched out of race one. Starting from feature race pole, an overzealous defensive block of Pourchaire cost him a harsh 10-second penalty and with it a potential victory. He often found himself dicing with Piastri, passing the champion-to-be twice in Baku. Bad luck played a part: an errant fire extinguisher at Monza and an engine failure in Abu Dhabi both caused retirements. His qualifying was poor outside of Baku, and to what extent did his parallel (and successful) DTM campaign distract him?

AA (6th): Expectations were high for the rookie after kicking off the season with a sprint race win and a feature race podium, and he wouldn’t disappoint. When the championship resumed in Monaco, Lawson proved his talent again with a fabulous manoeuvre on Oscar Piastri at the inside of Rascasse, en route to another win that would be eventually taken away due to a technical infringement. If there is a weekend where Lawson could have achieved more, that is Baku. Despite claiming pole, a race one collision and a penalty due to another incident in race three prevented him from reaching the podium on Hitech’s strongest weekend. Thereon, his season was affected by several mechanical failures, but he was still one of the main characters of on-track battles.

PA (6th): Lawson’s sheer talent really shone through at points – especially early on – even if his final championship position didn’t reflect it as well as his remarkable DTM exploits did. A winning start in Bahrain was followed by his stunning wet-weather Monaco win that should never be forgotten – his throttle-mapping mistake that caused his disqualification gave him a bad getaway anyway. He also claimed pole in Baku. But he then faded, not helped by Hitech losing ground in qualifying, but Lawson was usually quicker than team-mate Vips. Like Vips he suffered misfortune too, such as his fire extinguisher snuffing out a strong race at Monza. He was F2’s most spectacular racer and it got him into trouble sometimes. That he and Piastri raced each other so hard so frequently without issue suggests there wasn’t too much wrong with his own car placement, but a wiser approach could pay off in 2022.

5. Dan Ticktum BRITAIN Carlin
4th in standings, 159.5pts (2 wins, 1 fastest lap, 7 podiums) – TP 58.5%, QA 7.0 (5th), FR 75.5 (5th), R2P 84 (3rd), LL 44 (7th)

PA (5th): At the point when Ticktum’s F1 dreams came crashing down (for probably the final time), he was right among F2’s top performers – as evidenced by his second place behind Guanyu Zhou and ahead of Piastri in the Silverstone feature race – so he arguably had some right to feel aggrieved that there wasn’t more trust in his abilities. He made the podium in each of the first six rounds, and three times in feature races – a tally nobody else except Piastri and Zhou matched. But too many points were lost in a surprising number of on-track scrapes for a driver whose wheel-to-wheel judgement has usually been far better than his critics suggest. And his form nosedived at the end of the season, wasting a final chance to show F1 what it was missing.

CB (5th): I’m not quite sure how to define Ticktum’s season, but it was incredibly solid (if not spectacular). He failed to score only four times, and three of those were retirements, meaning that just the Prema drivers had higher average finishing positions. Only Zhou and Piastri recorded more wins, too. But his qualifying dropping away in the season’s second half ruined any chances of a title charge (his average qualifying position fell from 4th across the first four races to 10th in the final four). This performance drop coincided with his departure from Williams’s driver academy, but this sums up the conundrum that is Dan Ticktum, as his behaviour out of the car continues to cause problems for someone so mercurially quick. Two moments that occurred away from racing aside, it was definitely a more mature approach this season and I look forward to seeing him adjust as he moves over to Formula E.

CW (6th): This year probably didn’t give us the best of Ticktum. There were consistent podiums, sure, but there were also big errors, a lack of huge point-paying weekends and a very substandard final two rounds. Off-track comments (and subsequent press conference outbursts) aside, Ticktum liked to complain about boredom and was just regularly in his own mindset through the year. There was the feeling that he could have featured a bit more regularly with the package that served Tsunoda so well last year, but things just rarely quite came together for him, aside from an inherited Monaco win, a fine Sochi success and a smattering of podiums elsewhere. There’s the feeling this year was a missed opportunity, and he leaves F2 without having quite mustered the results his talent was capable of. At least the radio chatter seemed to have reduced this year.

• Feature: How a team switch tilted Ticktum towards the front of F2

4. Robert Shwartzman RUSSIA (RAF) Prema
2nd in standings, 192pts (2 wins, 3 fastest laps, 8 podiums) – TP 43.2%, QA 6.9 (4th), FR 84 (3rd), SR 108 (1st), LL 42 (8th)

CB (2th): Second in the standings, yet this has to be seen as a disappointing season for Shwartzman. While he improved his qualifying performance from last year, it remained inconsistent and this proved decisive with this season’s much-maligned format adding greater emphasis to qualifying. The Russian couldn’t get near his rookie team-mate Piastri in qualifying, citing him as the “strongest team-mate I’ve had in my career”, and it translated into a chasm of points between the two. Piastri may have ended up a comfortable 60.5 points ahead, but Shwartzman found himself outscored by 20 points in qualifying and by 73.5 points in the feature races – a total that could have been higher if not for the shortened Jeddah race. Whatever his plans for 2022, he leaves F2 having only been beaten by four drivers (Mick Schumacher, Callum Ilott, Tsunoda and Piastri) across two seasons – not a bad list of drivers there.

RG (4th): Despite being title runner-up, it was a disappointing year for the pre-season title favourite as his rookie team-mate comprehensively outdrove him. Qualifying let him down too often, and though his racecraft was often superb, he left himself with too much to do. Both of his wins came in the opening sprint race where a front row start was the reward for a poor qualifying. Indeed, while he scored more points (108) than anyone else in the sprint races, taking only two podiums in feature races was not good enough. Once out front he could be uncatchable – in Baku he simply disappeared to win. But luck didn’t do him any favours. In Monaco, where he did top a qualifying session it was in the slower group. And on race day a fluffed pitstop cost him even a podium.

CW (4th): Shwartzman, as stealthy as he has ever been, snuck his way into second in the standings, and his season wasn’t bad by any stretch, but there was very little that was an outstanding highlight. That’s an approach that looked to perhaps even be the one to follow coming into this season, but the strength of the opposition changed the narrative on its head. Shwartzman’s brace of sprint race wins was great, but it also showcased qualifying as his big weakness. He got it nailed in the end (and in Monaco, straight after Prema focused on it during in-season testing), but the damage was done. To be so metronomically consistent in a series in which it is near-impossible to do sp was impressive, the lack of big results in qualifying and feature races less-so. Therefore, fourth on this list feels justified.

• Feature: The F2 juggernauts adopting each other’s strengths in 2021

3. Guanyu Zhou CHINA Virtuosi Racing
3rd in standings, 183pts (4 wins, 1 pole, 1 fastest lap, 9 podiums) – TP 63.5%, QA 4.6 (2nd), FR 112 (2nd), SR 67 (6th), LL 87 (1st)

CW (3rd): It wasn’t quite the title for Alfa Romeo Racing’s 2022 F1 driver, but very much a job done for Zhou in 2021. Yeah, his title challenge ultimately fell flat, but he was probably the driver in the season’s first half. The problem is that it was so long ago, it’s easy to forget his Bahrain weekend, where he persistently made weird strategies emphatically work, and Silverstone where he triumphed over Piastri. Those were both really, really strong performances. However, and this is a very big however, he was far too inconsistent, and some really silly errors cropped up (spinning out before things really got going at Silverstone and Sochi the two prime examples). Irrespective of past experience, this was by no means a dreadful season, but the flatness of the title challenge, errors and lack of ultimate performance makes it impossible to justify a higher position.

RG (2nd): Zhou’s third F2 season was comfortably his most impressive. Pole and the feature race win in Bahrain gave him a flying start, and after winning the first sprint race next time out in Monaco he began to look like title favourite. With two wins and two second places from feature races, he at times looked a class apart. But his racecraft could let him down when he needed to fight through the field and there were too many errors for a driver of his calibre and experience. Spins at Silverstone and on the formation lap in Sochi were costly. But as the only driver to land an F1 seat, he can look at the year as “job done”. 

AA (7th): His season raised more questions than provided answers. With a F1 future on the horizon, he was tipped to at least fight for the title until the very end, but it wasn’t meant to be. Zhou kicked off the season in style with pole, a sprint race podium and feature race victory, but such strong form wouldn’t last long. A lack of pace in Baku and Jeddah, several unforced errors, and not being able to gain places when he was in the middle of the pack are some of the reasons why he was third in the standings and almost 70 points off the champion. It’s true that he was very good when he was at the front, but having the chance to always drive at the front isn’t common in motorsport.

• Feature: How the F2 grid fizzled out of the F1 silly season [September ’21]

2. Theo Pourchaire FRANCE ART Grand Prix
5th in standings, 140pts (2 wins, 1 pole, 4 fastest laps, 3 podiums) – TP 73.7%, QA 4.9 (3rd), FR 77 (4th), SR 59 (8th), LL 61 (4th)

CW (2nd): What young Pourchaire achieved in Monaco was perhaps the single strongest performance across the junior categories in 2021, absolutely decimating the rest of the opposition during his first appearance on the famed street track. But that alone does not elevate him so highly on this list. Dragging what felt like a subpar ART GP package consistently towards the front was a huge achievement in itself and keeping in title contention towards the end despite a mid-season injury meaning he wasn’t quite at peak form on that basis was brilliant. Just the way he hustles a car around is a joy to watch as well, and of all the rookies on this list he was able to produce the most ‘wow’ moments. The sole downside was a few unnecessary mistakes creeping in. It’s like watching early Fernando Alonso in F1, Pourchaire’s going to be that outstanding.

CB (3rd): A lowest finish of 10th all season – discounting the races where he didn’t make the chequered flag – shows just how solid a year this was for Pourchaire. However, I think his consistency worked against him as too often he found himself in the middle of the points, with only three podiums all season. His rookie campaign would probably get more credit if not for Piastri, and it had spectacular moments – namely that pole lap in Monaco. Beating his nearest challenger by almost half a second was astounding and it highlights just how exciting a talent he really is. It’s also important to factor in his accident in Baku and ensuing injury that affected him across the Silverstone weekend, which led to him scoring just 10 points in four races. Another step-up next season and he has to be one of the clear title favourites.

BW (4th): Pourchaire came into the season as one of the rookies to watch, and he definitely lived up to that. It wasn’t a perfect season by any means, with a few too many retirements not necessarily his fault. But overall it was better than could be expected from a building year in F2. Seeing him bounce back from injury was brilliant, and to be able to keep that steady improvement is a good sign of things to come. But there are still improvements to be made. Along with typical rookie mistakes, Pourchaire can make leaps in qualifying and race pace. When the weekend came together, it really came together, but he didn’t seem to be able to bounce back from poor qualifying results as well as others.

• Feature: What Pourchaire’s future could be, and remembering the man who founded it

1. Oscar Piastri AUSTRALIA Prema
1st in standings, 252.5pts (6 wins, 5 poles, 6 fastest laps, 11 podiums) – TP 56.8%, QA 2.3 (1st), FR 139.5 (1st), SR 93 (2nd), LL 68 (2nd)

BW (1st): It’s hard to see anyone but Piastri in the top spot. Coming into the year, even as a FIA F3 champion, its fair to say most people saw this as a learning year for him. Apparently he didn’t get the memo. There’s a lot of talk about the format changes but, in my opinion, being able to adapt to a different format and manage a title challenge over the course of a season is much more important than bring able to qualify well and dominate races. In series like FE, we’ve seen that’s what separates the great from the champion and bodes well for whatever Piastri does in the future. Obviously his qualifying and race pace were also phenomenal, showing a clear step up from F3 last season.

PA (1st): Piastri began the season showing the same calm but effective racecraft that worked so well for him in F3 (he quickly learnt from fighting Ticktum too hard in Bahrain) and it looked like that alone would make him a very strong title contender given how well-suited it was to 2021’s format. Then he started to nail qualifying – his weakness from F3 – and he became utterly unstoppable. His growth and self-improvement to this point has been somewhat reminiscent of George Russell’s, and with that he made the most of a Prema package that is once more consistently strong across the board for the first time since Charles Leclerc’s domination of 2017. As a rookie champion he’s rightly talked about in the same terms, and F1 teams should be fighting over his services – even if only on loan.

RG (1st): What new can be said about Piastri’s incredible season? Yes, he was in the strongest team, but he clearly had the measure of his more experienced team-mate. His F3 title had been won through consistency rather than outright speed but five consecutive poles this year comprehensively erased any remaining doubts there. In the second half of this year, he was simply untouchable. To win four feature races on the bounce is a very tough ask in such a competitive series. Inevitably, where reversed grids force even the fastest driver into the midfield skirmishes there were some isolated incidents but by-and-large he managed to keep out of trouble. Only Shwartzman took more points in the sprint races. Undoubtedly a worthy champion. Had his winning streak come earlier in the year, his claim for an F1 race seat for 2022 would surely have been irresistible.

CW (1st): There were no persistent flaws to Piastri’s outstanding campaign, and he is the easy choice for top spot on that basis. He just kept getting better and better as the year went on and was the strongest driver for much of the year above experienced opposition. Was he the most ruthless overtaker? No, but that’s not what wins you an F2 title. Piastri was measured, methodical and mighty in his approach, often being passive in the first race of a weekend to capitalise later on, particularly once he had qualifying nailed. The way he simply tore up the script and dominated what should have been an open season was a real shock. I would certainly argue that this has been the strongest season for a F2 driver since Leclerc. Piastri was that good this year.

• Feature: How Piastri ascended to another level with his crushing F2 title run

More F2 features
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The post The Top 10 Formula 2 drivers of 2021 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Future Alfa Romeo Formula 1 driver Guanyu Zhou says he is surprised at criticism he has received on social media ahead of his graduation to the top level in 2022.

Zhou is set to replace Antonio Giovinazzi at the Sauber-run Alfa squad in 2022, taking the spot ahead of the likes of fellow Alpine junior Oscar Piastri (who clinched the Formula 2 title in Abu Dhabi), existing Sauber junior Theo Pourchaire and Alfa reserve driver Callum Ilott.

He is on course to finish third in F2 in 2021, having finished sixth in 2020 and seventh (as top rookie) back in 2019, but has come under criticism from some corners for being chosen ahead of some of his current and former rivals, with the help of strong financial backing.

Zhou took his fourth win of the season in race two in Abu Dhabi, inheriting the lead when Marcus Armstrong’s engine cut out. Afterwards, he was asked by Formula Scout about the criticism he has received and said he “doesn’t really care” about those who have sent it.

“Yeah, I’m surprised how much stuff I got on social media, but I wasn’t paying too much attention on that,” he explained.

“Because, at the end of the day, I’ve achieved my dream and the amount of people who are proud of me here, proud of me worldwide, back home, is quite impressive and I’m very thankful for the support.”

Zhou is set to become China’s first race driver in F1 and is likely to play a crucial role in how the championship markets itself in the region in coming years, despite the lack of a home grand prix in 2022.

“And you know, when you reach your dream or the top step of motorsport, you’re always going to get haters, you’re always going to get those who like you or those who don’t. But I think we don’t really need to focus on what other people say.

“Just, you know, what is your love and what is your passion, because we’re all here in Formula 2. We are trying to do our best to try to reach Formula 1. It’s all our dreams in the feeder series when we started.

“And yeah, I achieved that goal, I’m super happy from my side and proud of my team and all the people who have supported me on this journey. The others I don’t really care too much [about].”

The post Zhou hits back at ‘surprising’ criticism ahead of F1 switch appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Guanyu Zhou took a comfortable win in Formula 2’s Abu Dhabi night race, after Marcus Armstrong retired from the lead due to a mechanical issue.

Virtuosi Racing driver Zhou claimed his fourth win of the season ahead of Prema’s Robert Shwartzman and Campos Racing’s Ralph Boschung.

The race start was a hectic one, with lots of drivers going side-by-side out of the reprofiled turn five. A very aggressive and newly crowned Oscar Piastri went deep in the brakes into the corner, forcing Hitech GP’s Liam Lawson to go off.

Piastri was handed a five-second time penalty, but it was without effect when another incident happened later in the race.

On lap four, the safety car had to be deployed to recover Alessio Deledda, who at the back of the field had been spun around by a diving Olli Caldwell at turn nine. The race resumed at the end of lap six with DAMS’ Armstrong leading from Zhou, who had overtaken front-row starter Boschung on lap three.

Green flag conditions didn’t last long as DAMS’ Roy Nissany went very deep into turn nine in an attempt to regain the places lost at the chicane that splits the back straight, and ended up colliding with Piastri who then hit Hitech’s Juri Vips. Both Piastri and Vips retired as a consequence, and the incident was investigated post-race.

The safety car came in at the end of lap 10, and Armstrong began the next lap by pulling to one side due to a mechanical issue. This left Zhou as the new race leader just before the VSC was deployed as Armstrong’s car was recovered.

Shwartzman passed Boschung for second place as racing resumed on lap 12, but Zhou had already escaped and was on course for victory. With his win, Zhou is now 17 points behind Shwartzman in the fight to be title runner-up.

On lap 16 of 23, Zhou’s team-mate Felipe Drugovich pulled a brilliant move on race one winner Jehan Daruvala around the outside of turn nine. Drugovich had stronger pace in the closing stages, tracking down Daruvala’s Carlin team-mate Dan Ticktum in the last two laps but not being able to pass as the Briton went elbows out to held on to fourth.

Race results (23 laps)

The post Zhou wins, Piastri spins and car issue ends Armstrong race under lights appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Alpine junior Oscar Piastri is on the verge of securing a historic third consecutive junior single-seater championship in Abu Dhabi. As Craig Woollard explains, his rivals’ narrow title hopes are all but non-existent

51.5 points sounds like a lot when only 65 points are on the table and, in reality, it really is. While Robert Shwartzman is in contention to overhaul Prema team-mate Piastri to snatch the Formula 2 crown, his task is unbelievably challenging to achieve. For complete outsider Guanyu Zhou, being 64.5 points means anything other than a perfect weekend for the future Formula 1 driver will not be enough.

Mathematically, sure, Shwartzman can sure do it. But what he will need to do to overhaul his team-mate is not an easy task. Zhou’s objective is straightforward to the point where anybody can make sense of it, but Shwartzman’s is problematic with how complex the format and season is this year.

For a start, the title is very much out of Shwartzman’s hands. He requires Piastri to score fewer than 13 points throughout the weekend to even stand a chance of taking the title. That’s less than one fourth place in the feature race or one second place in either of the two sprint races with no scores anywhere else across the weekend, or a smattering of minor points places in the three races.

That is simply a level of performance that Piastri has not dipped to at any point this season. Only in the weekends with his two non-finishes (Bahrain and Baku) has he scored as low as 21 across the weekend. Even in Sochi (with race two cancelled) and Jeddah (half points in the feature race), Piastri scored more through the weekend.

He is on an exceptional run of form with four poles and four wins (three of them feature races) from the last four events. The wildly long gaps between previous rounds seemed to do nothing to stunt his momentum and, barring a weekend littered with unreliability and issues beyond his control, it would be unlikely that Piastri has a massively challenging weekend.

Photo: Prema

In the very unlikely event that condition is fulfilled, Shwartzman would need to achieve something no driver has achieved in F2 this season with the new format, or in FIA Formula 3 with a very similar format – scoring over 51 points in a weekend.

No driver in F2 this season has scored more than 41 points in a weekend. Piastri (Monza), Zhou (Bahrain) and Juri Vips (Baku) have all scored that much, but nobody has come close to the tally Shwartzman requires to come out on top. In FIA F3, champion Dennis Hauger scored 49 points at the Red Bull Ring with a trio of podiums (a win with fastest lap and a third place in the reverse grid races from 12th on the grid, and second in race three from pole).

So, the odds are very firmly stacked against Shwartzman on that basis alone. The way to accumulate 51 points is very tricky. And Shwartzman in almost two seasons has qualified no higher than second. Should he claim pole, and convert it into victory with fastest lap, then he will take 31 points. That pole, however, puts Shwartzman in 10th for the first sprint race.

He’ll still need to accumulate at least 22 more points at the very least (working on the unlikely assumption that Piastri fails to score) across the two sprint races. That’s two third places and a fastest lap, or a second place and a third place. That won’t be easy from 10th and eighth or ninth on a reversed grid. Alternatively, going from 10th to sixth and then from fifth to first with both fastest laps will suffice for a Saturday before a perfect Sunday.

Another alternative would be to take second place in all three races with all 10 available bonus points, from ninth, ninth and pole. Again, it’s a difficult hypothetical to envisage given nobody has scored more than 41 points in a weekend, and Shwartzman hasn’t taken more than 36 across a weekend this season to date.

Can Shwartzman be a threat for pole at Yas Marina and finally put those Friday woes behind him? It is entirely plausible. He was close to doing it in Jeddah last weekend, if not for a final corner error, and feels like he’s finally cracked it.

“Unfortunately, I struggled quite a bit in qualifying [in 2021], but it seems that only now I sort of found the idea of what the issue [was],” he said after sprint race two. “It’s a bit late maybe, but still it’s good to know what actually happened.”

Photo: Prema

He expanded on the issue as being “something personal driving-wise”, which indicated his own driving wasn’t a perfect implementation of the rigorously practiced approaches done in Prema’s simulator. But Shwartzman says he has to wait until Abu Dhabi to see if he has made a breakthrough, or if his most recent change in pursuit of speed just suited Jeddah’s unique layout.

F1’s Abu Dhabi finale is set up to be the most intense in many, many years. F2’s ultimately has likely fallen a little short of it, largely due to Piastri’s remarkable consistency. It will be a mammoth challenge for Shwartzman to triumph, but any chance is still a chance. He’ll need some outrageous scenarios to occur, but F2 can be wildly unpredictable. This, though, may be a stretch even by F2’s standards.

For the championship leader, however, he’s not celebrating yet. “It’s not done until it’s mathematically impossible,” Piastri said in the post-feature race press conference. “Obviously, the points gap is big now and that was exactly the plan going into this weekend. But I still need to make sure it’s done first and then I’ll hopefully celebrate it.”

The drivers looking to 2022

The current top four in the standings will be moving on from F2 next year, with Theo Pourchaire in fifth set for a second season with ART Grand Prix and Juri Vips in sixth also likely to remain at Hitech GP.

The only deals already confirmed for 2022 are far further back, as Ralph Boschung goes for a third F2 campaign with Campos Racing after taking his first podium in the Jeddah feature race and Clement Novalak goes full-time with MP Motorsport having signed to contest the last two rounds of 2021 to prepare.

“The feature race was bizarre, but I’m nevertheless delighted to finally stand on the F2 podium,” Boschung said.

“It’s been a long time coming and we’ve had the potential to achieve it all season, so it’s an amazing feeling for both me and the team to get our hands on a trophy.”

That’s not hyperbole, as Boschung’s street circuit abilities has put him in contention for strong results in Monaco, Baku, Sochi and then Jeddah. But to end a five-year streak without a win in Abu Dhabi will be unlikely.

“We immediately had good pace [in Jeddah] and I knew we would be in the fight for pole,” he added. “I got a great launch off the line in the feature race and managed to avoid Pourchaire, who stalled just ahead of me.

“At the restart I was feeling quick and pressured Shwartzman for second place. At the same time, Zhou attacked me from behind, but I defended well to hold position. We still have some improvements to make, especially with race pace, but we are feeling good right now and I’m excited for the finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend.”

The post Why it will be near-impossible to stop Piastri being F2’s number one appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull Racing

The top three in the Formula 2 championship are not convinced that changes made to the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi will be beneficial for overtaking during races.

Major changes have been made to the track for the first time since its debut in 2009 with the aim of improving the quality racing, including the removal of the chicane prior to the first back straight, and the creation of a long, slightly banked corner to replace the technical section at the end of the second back straight.

Prema pair Oscar Piastri and Robert Shwartzman, as well as Virtuosi Racing’s Guanyu Zhou were asked about the changes during Thursday’s F2 media session and in general felt that overtaking opportunities will not improve.

“Better racing? I don’t think so, to be honest,” Zhou said. “The second part [at the new turn 9] going into the last sector, that high-speed going into slow speed makes life harder to be following.”

Points leader Piastri, meanwhile, doesn’t get the idea behind the new turn 9.

“I don’t really think it will be better for overtaking to be honest,” he said. “I don’t really understand the new corner of turn 9. I really don’t think it’s going to provide much overtaking. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but the braking zone from what I’ve driven on the sim is much shorter than what it used to be, and the corner is more open and higher-speed.

“From an overtaking perspective I don’t really understand that change.”

Shwartzman added: “Turn 9 will not help at all. It’s not a corner which is generally easy to follow, as the guys said. And also later on, you don’t have any straights or any other opportunities to do a move.”

The trio were however more complimentary about the changes earlier in the lap.

“Turn 5 I think is a step forward towards helping the overtaking,” Shwartzman said. “All the rest, it’s either the same or not really better. I think the main overtaking we’re going to see is on the straights if there will be.”

Piastri thinks “some of the changes they’ve made will make the track a bit nicer to drive” and that turn 5 “possibly will open up a few more lines down the back straight so you might be able to overtake down into turn 6.”

Further changes include alterations to the final part of the lap, opening up some of the corners for increased speed.

Zhou concluded that “in general, I think the track has become a lot quicker, not just the two biggest changes but also through the last section, around the hotel corners.

“Everything is just more high-speed so I think qualifying is going to be even more important than before, but overtaking points I don’t think will be more than before.”

The post Leading F2 drivers not sure Yas Marina changes will improve racing appeared first on Formula Scout.