Photo: Macau GP Organising Committee

This weekend marks a big change for grand prix racing, as a new sprint race is run to decide who takes British GP pole. Sprint qualifying will be 100km, a distance most drivers last raced over in their junior careers

The second-shortest world championship Formula 1 race is set to take place this Saturday, with a 17-lap bout around Silverstone acting as the focal point of a format shake-up the owners of F1 have been angling over for some time.

It will controversially declare its winner the poleman for the British Grand Prix, which is the first time a series at a national level or higher has used something other than session laptimes (from practice or qualifying) or championship points (often when weather has led to session cancellations) to establish who officially gets pole other than IndyCar’s Iowa heat races in 2012*

Knockout events such as the Formula Ford Festival do use the winner of preceding races to set grids, but those heat races have their own qualifying sessions where the statistical record of taking pole is awarded.

That factor alone isn’t just what’s making this a step in the dark, as F1 has never scheduled races to be this short. Previous occasions where grands prix have ended up just north of 100 kilometres, or just over half that in the case of the flooded 1991 Australian Grand Prix, have been due to red flags. Drivers and teams prepare their cars for 200km or more.

The British F1 championship never ran races this short in the 1970s, and ignoring Bologna’s F1 Indoor Trophy events then the last race to use F1 regulations and be scheduled to be shorter than 100km were the 1967 Spring Cup heats at Oulton Park.

So when was the last time each of this year’s F1 field were sprinting for success in a single-seater?

Nikita Mazepin, Mick Schumacher & Yuki Tsunoda F2 2020 Sochi sprint race
Distance: 29.041km

A huge accident involving Jack Aitken and Luca Ghiotto cut this race short just as the Formula 2 title battle was getting tense, and half-points being awarded cost Yuki Tsunoda the title runner-up spot (if his finishing position went unchanged had this race run for the full duration).

Aitken and Ghiotto collided as they ran side-by-side through the very long Turn 3 left-hander as they fought over fourth.

Both went into the outside barriers at high speed, after Ghiotto’s car had already been sent airborne, and were able to retrieve themselves. Ghiotto did just in time before his car set on fire. The damage to the barriers neccessitated a red flag stoppage, and the length of those repairs meant the race wasn’t restarted and the results taken from the end of lap five.

Reversed grid poleman Guanyu Zhou was therefore named winner, ahead of Nikita Mazepin, Mick Schumacher and then the would-be retirees Aitken and Ghiotto. This proved costly in points terms for Schumacher’s main rivals Yuki Tsunoda and Callum Ilott, who were classified sixth and seventh.

Nicholas Latifi F2 2019 Sochi sprint race
Distance: 87.521km

Ghiotto withstood pressure from new F2 champion Nyck de Vries to seize victory in another truncated Sochi sprint race the year before, following a heavy lap one accident involving Aitken and Mazepin that led to Mazepin going wide and flying back onto the track and into Nobuharu Matsushita. Both ended up hurtling into the barriers, and the race was red flagged.

With de Vries having wrapped up the title in the previous race, his main rival Nicholas Latifi had nothing to lose. However the Canadian finished fourth, behind de Vries after starting ahead of him, and only got his finishing position after DAMS team-mate Sergio Sette Camara was penalised five seconds for rejoining the track unsafely.

De Vries finished second in the restarted 15-lap race, and Ilott was third.

Lando Norris & George Russell F2 2018 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

The eventual 2018 F2 title contenders individually all had their worst weekends in Monaco, with Lando Norris doing the best job in making the sprint race podium but also being the only of the year’s top four to actually score on Monaco’s streets.

Ferrari junior Antonio Fuoco started from reversed grid pole, having finished the feature race in eighth place despite a drive-through penalty for putting Ghiotto in the barrier at the start.

Norris, who also picked up a feature race penalty for contact, started third and took a place immediately from a slower-starting Aitken, who then lacked power up the hill and had to retire with a technical issue.

An early virtual safety car to clear cars stranded on the grid was followed by a full safety car when Sean Gelael crashed heavily at the Swimming Pool on lap four of 30.

After initially building a one-second lead at the restart, Fuoco’s advantage was cut by Norris to just 0.3 seconds at one stage, before a particularly slow lap from the McLaren junior increased the gap to 1.7s.

Following a brief VSC when George Russell crashed on lap 20, Fuoco’s lead went above three seconds, where it remained until the safety car returned on lap 27 when Alex Albon and Roy Nissany collided exiting the tunnel.

With little warning, the race was restarted with two laps to go with Norris right up behind Fuoco, but the Italian enjoyed a good gap once he put his foot down out of the Swimming Pool section. The race was immediately neutralised once again though as Nirei Fukuzumi and Santino Ferrucci skated deep into La Rascasse on the restart.

That secured Fuoco victory and Norris second, but post-race both were found to have breached the VSC regulations and had the time they had illegally gained added to their race time. That had no effect on Fuoco, but dropped Norris to third behind Louis Deletraz.

Pierre Gasly FE 2017 New York E-Prix 2
Distance: 95.697km

Photo: Formula E

Photo: Formula E

The absence of Sebastien Buemi due to World Endurance Championship commitments meant Pierre Gasly was called up to run in Formula E’s two New York E-Prix races in 2017 during his title-challenging sole season in Super Formula.

It wasn’t a great start as he clouted his car against the circuit limits during qualifying for Saturday’s E-Prix, and it meant he started from 19th place. He maqde up for it later in the day by charging up the order and scoring six points with a seventh place finish.

It was a turnaround of form for the next day too, as he topped the entirety of group qualifying, but a major wide moment in the super pole session limited him to fourth place on the grid when pole was definitely on the cards. With laptimes of just over a minute, it meant the whole 49-lap race of Sunday could be completed in under an hour.

He dropped back at first, but was rapidly closing in on the battle for second place at the end. In fact he approached the battle too quick, slamming into the barriers at the final corner as looked at making a move on the two Mahindra cars ahead of him before they met the chequered flag.

Once Buemi was back in the series, Gasly’s time in FE was quickly forgotten. However he is the first FE driver to then go on to win a F1 grand prix.

Charles Leclerc F2 2017 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

The first races on home soil for Charles Leclerc went, quite frankly, dreadfully. The F2 rookie took pole, and was controlling the feature race until a safety car interruption shortly after his pitstop.

The issue was the safety car picked up long-time leader Leclerc rather than yet-to-pit Oliver Rowland, who was then able to streak past Leclerc and make his own pitstop without a loss.

It only got worse for Leclerc, as vibrations on the front-left wheel led to a second trip to the pits. He rejoined the action, but then retired and that left him down in 17th on the grid for the sprint race.

While fellow rookie de Vries led home his veteran Rapax team-mate Johnny Cecotto Jr for an impressive first win, Leclerc toiled again as contact with Norman Nato at Rascasse put Nato into retirement and earned him a 10s penalty. His car wasn’t responding well after the clash though, and he soon retired too in the pits.

There was more turmoil in the coming weeks for Leclerc, but he put in some of the performances of his life thereafter to take a dominant title win.

Antonio Giovinazzi GP2 2016 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

Photo: GP2 Media Service

A feature race error cost a potential maiden GP2 win for Antonio Giovinazzi on the streets of Monaco, but he instead left the principality with his first four races ending in 11th, retirement, 11th and 18th. A few weeks later he made up for it with a memorable double win in Baku.

He originally finished seventh in the Monaco feature race, but a penalty for cutting the chicane dropped him to 11th, and therefore took him from second to 11th on the sprint race grid.

There was no impressive comeback from the Italian, as he dropped to last on the opening lap and at first only gained places from drivers ahead retiring.

He passed Latifi, but that only brought him up to 18th and he remained in that position for 20 laps.

Honda junior Nobuharu Matsushita was promoted to pole off the back of Giovinazzi’s penalty, and he made the most of it to dominate. Marvin Kirchhofer finished a distant second, and Raffaele Marciello rounded out the podium.

Esteban Ocon GP3 2015 Abu Dhabi sprint race
Distance: 77.641km

Esteban Ocon claimed the 2015 GP3 title in the season finale at Yas Marina Circuit, while Campos Racing protege Alex Palou claimed his maiden series win.

Palou led the field off the line from reversed grid pole and quickly pulled away from Fuoco to triumph by 4.2 seconds.

Ocon made a strong start to his race from fifth on the grid, despite making light contact with title rival Luca Ghiotto. He went past Ghiotto and Matt Parry to move into third, which was enough to be champion.

Ghiotto did pressure Ocon for position for several laps but he couldn’t find a way through, meaning his five wins wasn’t enough against Ocon’s podium consistency for the ultimate prize.

Future Zakspeed star Jimmy Eriksson finished fifth, and Emil Bernstorff was sixth.

Max Verstappen F3 2014 Macau Grand Prix
Distance: 91.800km

Photo: MGPC

Photo: MGPC

The biggest race of Max Verstappen’s sole year in junior single-seaters was his win in front of his home fans in the Masters of F3 event at Zandvoort. That came in at 107.675km, but the shorter Macau Grand Prix carried more prestige.

Verstappen qualified third around the Guia Circuit, and moved up to second early on in the qualification race. However his inexperience got the better of him as he wrecked his rear suspension with contact and had to go to the pits to retire.

That left him in 24th place on the grid for the grand prix itself, denying any chance to use his pace to win. But it didn’t stop him from trying.

Five places were gained on lap one as a multi-car quagmire appeared following a collision between Vertstappen’s FIA European Formula 3 rivals Tom Blomqvist and Ocon further up the field. The resultant red flag delayed the action by some time, and wheen green flag racing ensued it became an early Verstappen masterclass.

He picked off on average one car per lap to rise all the way up to seventh place, taking fastest lap by almost a quarter of a second on the way. In addtion, he was the highest placed Volkswagen-powered driver in a race dominated by Mercedes’ unit.

Carlos Sainz Jnr FR3.5 2014 Hungaroring race 1
Distance: 96.382km

Roberto Merhi claimed his third Formula Renault 3.5 win in four races in a wet Hungary, finishing almost 30s clear of the field.

The Spaniard made his way from seventh on the grid to second at the start, then put several laps of pressure on poleman Oliver Rowland, who eventually cracked when he ran deep at turn one.

Merhi then ran away at an astonishing pace, while countryman and points leader Carlos Sainz Jr had a strong beginning to the race too to overcome a bad qualifying session. From 14th on the grid he made it to fourth, but further progress was halted by fellow Red Bull junior Gasly who defended hard.

As the track dried, Gasly then hunted down Rowland for second successfully as Sainz settled for fourth and a cut to his championship lead. It was a performance that, while impressive, didn’t help his ambitions of a 2015 F1 seat.

Series debutant Ocon held off the attention of Jazeman Jaafar to take ninth.

Valtteri Bottas FIA F3 Int. Trophy 2011 Macau Grand Prix
Distance: 91.800km

Photo: MGPC

Photo: MGPC

Valtteri Bottas’s main focus in 2011 was GP3, which he won the title in, and he also got his first F1 test with Williams. At the end of the year the focus was on a F3 return at the Macau GP with Double R Racing, and it started off encouragingly as the Finn went fourth fastest in qualifying.

He then kept it clean to retain that position in the qualification race, with some drivers able to get past but making mistakes that undid any advantage they briefly had over Bottas.

The main race was a different matter though, with far more risks being taken given what was on the line, and in the last of his three-wide moments going into Lisboa with Dani Juncadella and Felipe Nasr he braked later than his opponents – with rear brakes he was already struggling with – which left him with too much speed as he turned and he clattered the barriers. His race was over.

Daniel Ricciardo FR3.5 2011 Monaco
Distance: 100.200km

FR3.5 only held one race in its Monaco rounds, and that freed up Daniel Ricciardo to spend Thursday driving for Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) in F1 free practice.

When he hopped back into his usual car he was fastest in practice and qualifying, and that set up a lights-to-flag win. Brendon Hartley and Robert Wickens applied pressure through the first handful of laps, but Hartley started being more cautious and Wickens was saving his challenges for the end.

Two safety car interruptions kept Wickens on the tail of the leader, but strong corner exits for the leader meant there was nowhere around the circuit where Wickens could make a move. The result was Ricciardo’s second Monaco win, his fifth FR3.5 win and another point to take to Dr Helmut Marko to convince him he was already F1-worthy.

Sergio Perez GP2 2010 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.200km

Having brilliantly won the feature race the day before – his first win in the main GP2 series – Sergio Perez was therefore tasked with doing what he could from eighth on the grid in the sprint race. In one of the more chaotic Monaco races, Addax driver Perez kept his head cool to salvage a point.

Incidents for Scuderia Coloni’s Alberto Valerio and Racing Engineering’s Dani Clos, as well as a drive-through for Rapax’s Pastor Maldonado for jumping the start, allowed Perez to slide into the top six (and thus the points) despite being passed by Trident’s Cecotto.

At the end of the race, Perez was pressuring Rapax’s Luiz Razia while also holding off Arden’s Charles Pic. Up front, DAMS’ Jerome d’Ambrosio beat Addax’s Giedo van der Garde by a narrow margin, while ART Grand Prix’s Jules Bianchi made bold moves to take third on a track he would rise to stardom on four years later.

It was a rather incident-heavy race, with five drivers including Maldonado picking up penalties and seven of the 24 drivers not seeing the chequered flag.

Sebastian Vettel FR3.5 2007 Monaco
Distance: 83.500km

Photo: Renault Sport

Future two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel would have had a stronger chance to win on the streets in FR3.5 not long before his F1 call-up with BMW Sauber if not for a simple luck of the draw.

The qualifying groups that year were decided with a draw, and Carlin driver Vettel was placed in what was the group that appeared to have the slower track conditions.

Tech 1 Racing’s Alvaro Parente was the lucky man on the day and put it together to stick it on pole despite hitting the wall, and future FE racer Salvador Duran thought he was on pole but set his fastest lap while yellow flags were being waved.

Parente nailed the start and had to withstand pressure throughout the 25-lap race from Vettel, who was never more than 1.5s behind. Vettel had a moment on lap 15, cutting the Swimming Pool chicane, but kept the pressure on until the end.

Duran barged his way from fifth to take third after passing Milos Pavlovic at the start and inheriting the final podium spot after Clivio Piccione spun late on. Future F1 driver van der Garde rounded out the top five.

Lewis Hamilton GP2 2006 Hungaroring sprint race
Distance: 100.756km

Photo: GP2 Media Service

The Hungaroring sprint race was held in abysmal conditions shortly before F1’s first wet race at the circuit. Hamilton was in the midst of the toughest round of his GP2 season, while title rival Nelson Piquet Jr aimed to be first to complete a perfect weekend.

Giorgio Pantano spun off on the sighting lap for GP2 drivers, and the race began under the safety car. The cars were released on lap three, with Hamilton starting from 10th following a recovery from crashing in practice, spinning in qualifying (which put him last) and then using scintillating pace to rise to 10th despite a drive-through in the feature race.

Jose Maria Lopez spun off early in the sprint race after starting from pole, before Andre Negrao had a huge shunt that allowed Piquet and Hamilton to make up ground. Piquet also made crucial moves on E.J. Viso and Hamilton’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Alexandre Premat for second.

That became first when Racing Engineering’s Adam Carroll, who was leading, spun into the barriers. Piquet enjoyed a five-second lead over Premat, who did not make it easy for his team-mate to get by.

Piquet went on to complete the first GP2 perfect weekend – pole, both wins and both fastest laps – while Hamilton salvaged a second place from 10th on the grid and Premat completed the podium.

While the Hungaroring sprint race marginally exceeds the length of F1’s first sprint race, Hamilton did end the previous year with victory, pole and fastest lap in the 82.332km F3 Euro Series finale at Hockenheim.

Kimi Raikkonen FR Eurocup 2000 Spa-Francorchamps
Distance: 76.648km

Photo: Renault Sport

Kimi Raikkonen is synonymous with Spa-Francorchamps, so it’s only apt that he triumphed in a Formula Renault Eurocup outing in the Ardennes having already clinched the United Kingdom crown a month earlier.

Charles Zwolsman was on pole, but Manor Motorsport’s Raikkonen got by on the run down to Eau Rouge and simply sprinted off into the distance after that, opening up a lead of four seconds to a charging Matteo Grassotto, who started fifth.

Grassotto had to battle with Raikkonen’s future Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa to take third place before working his way past Zwolsman for second.

Such was Raikkonen’s pace in the race, he told Autosport at the time that “the first day was tough” when qualifying was held, but that “in the race, it was okay again, and I was able to back off to conserve my pace”. Another future F1 driver – one-off star Markus Winkelhock – finished sixth and Massa came home in eighth.

Fernando Alonso FOpen by Nissan 1999 Valencia Ricardo Tormo race 2
Distance: 100.125km

While Fernando Alonso clinched the Formula Open by Nissan title in the finale at Valencia in his most recent sprint race, there was controversy surrounding it.

The Campos Racing rookie worked his way past title rival Manuel Giao on lap two of the race to take second place behind future IndyCar racer Tomas Scheckter, but Scuderia Famo’s Giao felt the move was done under yellow flags.

Alonso undercut Scheckter in the pits to take the win and the title in the finale. Giao protested the overtake but to no avail, and he later appealed the decision.

Behind Alonso was series debutant (and race one winner) Scheckter, with Angel Burgueno rounding out the podium ahead of Giao.

*This article originally ommitted mention of IndyCar’s 2012 Iowa races, where qualifying and a knockout format combined for a final heat where the winner was awarded pole for the main race. The race had its own points format to reward its finishers rather than awarding a point for pole.

The post The last time each current F1 driver did ‘sprint qualifying’-distance races appeared first on Formula Scout.

Recapping the junior careers of Formula 1’s 2022 grid, aided by photos of the drivers in their racing youth

MERCEDES-AMG

Lewis Hamilton was already a Formula 1 junior during his karting years, last millennium, and the support of McLaren took him from the international scene through to single-seaters in Formula Renault 2.0, Formula 3 and GP2. He started off in FR2.0 UK with Manor Motorsport and took his first win at Thruxton. He added another two wins during the season, but was more impressive in the Eurocup where he had the highest scoring rate of anyone in his part-season and was fifth in the points.

A second season resulted in a dominant UK title and the first F3 appearances for Hamilton, all with Manor, and in 2004 he was reunited with karting rival Nico Rosberg in the F3 Euro Series. It was the German who came out on top, but Hamilton ended the year with a rapid showing in the Macau Grand Prix and a stunning win in the Bahrain Superprix. A falling out followed with his McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh, who tore up Hamilton’s contract when he and his father pushed for a move up to GP2.

A few weeks later Hamilton re-signed with McLaren after agreeing to another year in F3. A switch to Frederic Vasseur’s ASM/ART Grand Prix operation resulted in back-to-back titles in the Euro Series and GP2, and despite some testing struggles on Michelin tyres he was promoted to a McLaren seat in F1 immediately after. The rest is history.

Noted for his maturity from a young age, it was still difficult for George Russell to get noticed by F1. Highly-rated in karting where he won back-to-back European titles, his first year in cars was split between BRDC British Formula 4 and FR2.0 abroad, and it was the former where he won his first title. But it was the latter where he more frequently raised eyebrows, especially when a change of teams resulted in a Eurocup win.

He was in European F3 the next year, winning his second race but claiming just two other podiums. His second season was better, and with a less experienced team, and while he was overpowered by Stroll in the title race, Mercedes recognised his  potential and signed him up. Working with F1’s top team unlocked a new level of performance, and Russell brushed off unreliability to become GP3 and F2 champion with ART. He then sweet-talked Williams into handing him an F1 seat.

SCUDERIA FERRARI

In the face of frequent tragedy, Charles Leclerc was a wanted talent in every series he raced in, guided by established F1 driver manager Nicolas Todt since a glittering karting career. It was Fortec Motorsports that won out to run him in FR2.0 Alps as a single-seater rookie, when he was the best driver bar veteran Nyck de Vries, even on wildcard appearances in a packed Eurocup field.

That earned him a move to FIA European F3 with Van Amersfoort Racing, where some early wins and displays of wet weather ability initially put him in title contention, and despite a lengthy podiumless run afterwards he was signed by the Ferrari Driver Academy. That preceded a GP3 move with ART, which resulted in the title, and he was the class of the Formula 2 field with Prema a year later despite his fair share of bad luck.

Carlos Sainz Jr arrived in single-seaters during Formula BMW Europe’s ultra-competitive final season in 2010, and his rookie crown raised the stakes for the Red Bull protege. What followed was initially just as slick, winning the FR Northern European Cup and finishing second in the Eurocup. On moving up to F3, he again demonstrated the talent he’d inherited from his world rally champion father with four wet-weather wins in the British series, but underwhelmed at other times.

Red Bull moved him to GP3, where he struggled badly, finishing 10th in the points when team-mate Daniil Kvyat won the title straight out of FR2.0. Confidence-boosting Formula Renault 3.5 cameos with Zeta Corse led to a full-time switch to the series with DAMS, and he dominated the 2014 season. His F1 chance only came however when Sebastian Vettel left Red Bull for Ferrari, leaving a vacant Toro Rosso space.

RED BULL RACING

There’s not much to say about Max Verstappen‘s junior single-seater career, beyond it redefining what was expected of young drivers of the present day. The World Karting champion debuted in America in the Ferrari Driver Academy-organised Florida Winter Series, where he was up against some of F3’s finest. He took fastest lap in his first race, was on pole for his third, and a winner by his sixth.

This put expectation on him for European F3 with VAR, having shunned debuting in FR2.0 instead, and he delivered. After winning six races in a row and Masters of F3 he became a Red Bull junior and then days later an F1 driver. Having come third in the European standings, he ended his single year in the junior ranks with seventh in Macau from the back of the grid after crashing out of the qualifying race.

It wasn’t until his fifth year in single-seaters that Sergio Perez took an overall win, having spent his formative years dabbling in A1GP and the secondary class of British F3 as well as the more regular entry-level series. In F3 he did win the title though, and he stuck with the underdog T-Sport team for a season in the primary class where he won a respectable four races, regularly leading the championship before fading late on.

Wins in his debut GP2 Asia campaign that followed was false promise for the main series he stepped up to with Christian Horner’s Arden team, but his sophomore season featured five wins and the title runner-up spot against some quality but inconsistent opposition, earning his F1 break with Sauber and some Ferrari ties.

McLAREN

No other driver this century has had as successful a start to a single-seater career than Lando Norris, with an incredible five titles in his first three seasons. Following a circuit-learning Ginetta Junior campaign alongside his world championship-winning final year in karts, Norris started off with the British F4 title, as well as successful cameos in the German and Italian series.

He used his backing to contest a total of 61 races the following year, winning the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand and then two FR2.0 titles in Europe, as well as four BRDC British F3 races in a part-season. In 2017 came his first role with McLaren and the European F3 crown – the first for Carlin after six years of Prema domination – and a sixth title just went amiss in his single year in F2.

Daniel Ricciardo raced in Australia, East Asia, Italy, the UK and across Europe for three years with little to show before a driver shootout propelled him into Red Bull’s books and top equipment. He started life as an F1 junior with the FR2.0 West European Cup title and a close second place to Bottas in the Eurocup, and followed it up with a romp to the British F3 title against an admittedly underpar field.

The step up to FR3.5 was therefore a truer test of his ability, and he came just two points short of title glory there too against series veteran Mikhail Aleshin. He returned to the series part-time the following year – winning the Monaco race for the second year in succession – working it around F1 practice outings before Red Bull found him a race seat at HRT.

ALPINE

Spotted by the late Adrian Campos in karts, Fernando Alonso was brought under his wing on a three-year plan. He debuted in FR3.5 predecessor Euro Open by Nissan in 1999 aged 17 and won on his debut weekend, adding five more wins and a title earned on dropped scores before moving to GP2 predecessor International Formula 3000.

Results were lacking at first, but Alonso jumped to fourth in the points with a first win in the final race at Spa. He was an F1 tester for Minardi too, and got a race seat there in his third year in single-seaters. He moved on to Renault with success, and returned there last year under its new name.

F1 had a close eye on Esteban Ocon from karting, when he was picked up by the Gravity management company tied to the Lotus team. His first year of car racing was actually way short of what was expected, but he picked up his game after that and succeeded a race-winning year in FR2.0 in 2013 with an era-defining European F3 title against Tom Blomqvist and Verstappen in 2014.

That crowning moment coincided with the tightening of belts by Lotus ownership, but Mercedes helped him into GP3 where he won another title, thanks this time to consistency more than speed. Then he was moved into the DTM for half a season prior to his F1 debut.

ALPHATAURI

Pierre Gasly raced only for French operations during his first three years in cars, which started with wins in French F4 that earned him some early attention from Red Bull. His rookie Eurocup season wasn’t enough to retain that initial support, but he somewhat unexpectedly won the title the following year, leading Red Bull to sign him outright to its junior team as he made the natural step up to FR3.5.

This marked the start of a lengthy winless spell. He was runner-up in FR3.5 with eight podiums, and took four podiums and three poles in GP2 a year later. Over 1000 days after his last victory, he escaped a road accident to win a GP2 race at Silverstone in 2016, and adding three more won him the title but not an F1 seat. Only an astonishing Super Formula campaign, in which only a typhoon denied him a shot at the title, was able to do that.

After tasting Japanese F4 in 2016, Yuki Tsunoda committed to the series in 2017 as well as contesting the more mechanically complex JAF Japan F4 series. He became grand champion in the latter, but also finished third in the FIA series. Focusing solely on Japanese F4 for 2018 lifted him further and he became Honda’s first champion.

Making the move to Europe, Tsunoda was placed in FIA F3 and Euroformula as a Red Bull junior for 2019, and his racecraft was brilliant in both. He won with a less-fancied team in FIA F3, and was rewarded with promotion to F2, where he surprised by fighting for the title and earning his 2021 F1 seat.

ASTON MARTIN

Like Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel is one of a rare few drivers that have been guided to F1 by a team all the way from karting. It was Red Bull who spotted Vettel’s talent, also very early in his career in the previous millennium, and he made the transition to cars locally in FBMW. It took him two attempts to dominate the ADAC championship, and he only found success in F3 once moving to ASM – by which point he was already an F1 test driver with BMW Sauber.

It was Vettel’s cameos that really caught in the eye in the lower formula, including Macau, Spanish F3 and FR3.5. In 2007 he was set for a full campaign in the latter, and was leading the championship with Carlin before he was plucked away into F1 with BMW Sauber and then Toro Rosso.

Lance Stroll won almost from the off in single-seaters and had Ferrari support from the off too, having been signed to its academy at the age of 11. His presence was almost certainly key to the creation of the Florida Winter Series and he showed well there before gliding to the Italian F4 title, where the combined might of Prema and Ferrari helped considerably with a brand new car.

Winning the TRS title a few months later, in similarly easy fashion, meant more of the same was expected in European F3. Against a talent-stacked field that was not the case as a rookie, especially when it came to his wheel-to-wheel form, which earned him plenty of critics after two significant crashes. He was still fifth in the points though, and he dominated his sophomore season while preparing with Williams to step up to F1. On the side, he also starred in a prototype in the Daytona 24 Hours.

ALFA ROMEO

Photo: ACI Sport

Valtteri Bottas had most of his junior series success with ART GP, as he won the Masters of F3 race twice and the GP3 title with the team. His early experience came in FR2.0 too, and he won Europe’s two biggest titles in 2008 with Motopark Academy, whose boss Timo Rumpfkeil orchestrated backing from Bottas’s future F1 chief Toto Wolff as well as Mika Hakkinen.

His second F3 season coincided with a shift in power from ART and Mercedes to Signature and Volkswagen, meaning he missed out on the Euro Series title. Hence the move to GP3, where he went from 10th in the points to champion after four wins in the final four rounds. Bottas’s F1 break didn’t come through a GP2 campaign, instead earning a promotion from test driver at Williams following a year out of racing.

China’s first F2 racer Zhou Guanyu benefited from Ferrari and Renault/Alpine backing prior to jumping into an Alfa Romeo seat this year alongside the team’s other new signign Bottas, and he’s entering F1 with one single-seater title to his name.

In 2021 he won the Formula Regional Asian Championship with Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema in between his second and third seasons in F2 with Virtuosi Racing. That title success earned him additional FIA superlicence points that were crucial for strengthening his bargaining hand in F1 silly season, and three wins in the first half of the F2 season helped him further.

His end position in the championship was third, an improvement on his previous two seasons, and also showing that he was able to be an equal to the more highly-touted drivers on the grid.

Prior to his F2 blossoming, Zhou claimed two wins from three years in European F3, was a TRS race-winner and perhaps most impressively was Italian F4 runner-up in his first full year racing cars.

HAAS

Efforts were made to hide Mick Schumacher‘s family connection early in his career to avoid media pressure, but his karting results, as well as Deutsche Vermögensberatung sponsorship, marked him out. VAR provided Schumacher with his first single-seater berth in F4, and winning in his first ever weekend suggested he would be one to watch. But the reversed-grid victory proved to be a false dawn for the rookie, and only found the pace and consistency needed in his second season.

That was the same in other series Schumacher entered: runner-up in ADAC and Italian F4, third in the MRF Challenge and winning the European F3 title in his sophomore season. Ferrari picked him up after that, and developed him over two years of F2 into an F1-worthy talent.

A late change means there’s no Nikita Mazepin alongside Schumacher, but instead Kevin Magnussen returns to the team after a year out racing in IMSA and IndyCar after he was replaced by Mazepin.

Magnussen followed a similar junior series path to his father Jan, also a former F1 driver, as he won the Danish Formula Ford title then after coming second in FR2.0 NEC went to race in F3. He was third in Germany as a rookie, then after some bad luck with engine issues was able to be runner-up to Felipe Nasr in the British championship in 2011 while also starring in European appearances.

He was a McLaren F1 junior by this point, and the team entered him into FR3.5 for his next step. A thought-provoking first season with Carlin, which did include a win, led him to working even harder and then obliterating the field through much of 2013 with DAMS. Those performances were enough to convince McLaren he was worthy of an F1 seat the next year.

WILLIAMS

Photo: Joe Portlock

A late start to karting, and a sideline in Porsches, are two of the oddities of Nicholas Latifi‘s pre-F1 path, and he has only got stronger with each category he has moved on to. He had an unconventional start in Italian F3, where he did win, then took the only poles of his racing career in British F3.

Seasons in European F3 and FR3.5 didn’t show signs of race-winning form, but upon making it to GP2 with DAMS he began to settle down. He finished second in his first race with the team, after imperious testing form, and finished fifth in the points in his second full season. Illness and a new car to learn held him back in 2018, but he did add another win and started the 2019 season on fire before his title campaign ran out of steam.

Despite a lack of titles, Alex Albon now has one of the most well-known paths to F1 in the modern era due to his early dropping by Red Bull and then invitation back to the brand in 2019 when it was in search of a driver to race for Toro Rosso.

The Thai started straight away in FR2.0, and a points-free Eurocup campaign led to him losing his Red Bull junior status. He still had enough money to race in the series, and on his return picked up a pole and four points finishes in 2013.

Another jump in performance put him third in the 2014 points, although he only had three podiums, and in the NEC he picked up his first car racing win. Joining a revived Signature team in European F3 was an inspired move for Albon’s next step, as he earned pole positions and podiums in a field stacked with future F1 talents.

There was no return for a title attack though, as he moved to GP3 with a plum ART GP seat and challenged Leclerc for the 2016 title. The team kept him for his move up to F2 the next year, but a training accident meant he missed a round and endured a difficult campaign. His budget was also not in place for a second season, and he did find a seat at DAMS for 2018 but only on a round-by-round basis. Three poles and a win in the first four rounds helped him secure a full-time berth, and the results he put in after then earned him a top Formula E seat with Nissan e.dams before Red Bull stole him for F1.

The post What the drivers of F1 2022 did first appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Nikita Mazepin has achieved the results he needed to secure his place on the Formula 1 grid in 2021. But the increasing influence of drivers with extreme wealth can and must still be questioned.

Nikita Mazepin’s place on the Formula 1 grid is under significantly more scrutiny now than it was when the idea behind this piece was first formed prior to the announcement that he would be stepping up from Formula 2 this year. The incident that later triggered widespread condemnation – a video of Mazepin groping a woman that was uploaded to his Instagram account – was, as his new team Haas stated, “abhorrent” and questions remain about how it has been dealt with since.

But there were questions that had already been raised by his appointment to a race seat in the first place, and his inappropriate behaviour since then has certainly done nothing to weaken those concerns. If anything, the furore over the incident and the lack of visible action in its aftermath only serves to highlight the problems that can come from drivers using excessive wealth to buy a place on the F1 grid.

Mazepin did well in Formula 2 last season, as he also did in GP3 two years prior. But that doesn’t mean there are not question marks about his ability. As clearly proven by his victories in those championships, he is not a driver without skill. But the inescapable fact is this: he is an F1 driver because his father is a billionaire. And that is a problem – one that is greater than many had originally seemed willing to admit.

Some regularly leap to the defence of pay drivers, often citing the case of Niki Lauda – as Haas team principal Guenther Steiner did to defend Mazepin’s signing – or stating that they’ve always been a part of F1. But such arguments are simply false, because the figures at play now are completely different – and not just because of inflation.

It’s another level of money entirely. It’s money that means these drivers can afford to occupy seats for as long as they want; until they get too old or too bored. And they (or their fathers) can completely control the second seat in a team as well – potentially in a way that blocks opportunities for more talented drivers who might show them up.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Let’s be clear that, putting recent events to one side, the problem is not about Mazepin in particular. He joins Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi as the son of a billionaire on the F1 grid in 2021 – and for potentially many years to come. In other words, three out of 20 in what is supposed to be the world’s most elite group of racing drivers will have come from such extreme wealth. What are the odds of that?

When Stroll was the first of the trio to arrive in F1, it could have been considered simply a coincidence that a billionaire happened to produce a decent racing driver. But that three drivers from such backgrounds have made it in quick succession cannot possibly be a coincidence. It is fair to conclude that money has given these drivers a considerable advantage, and not enough is currently being done to counter that.

Those advantages are not limited to just being able to buy an F1 seat. Less obvious, but perhaps more problematic, are the numerous benefits of almost limitless resources while climbing the junior single-seater ladder. It’s easy to look at the records of drivers like Mazepin, Stroll and Latifi and say they’ve won races or even championships, but it’s important to also consider how they have managed to achieve those things.

It’s fairly well understood among followers of the junior formulae that strong backing provides access to the best teams with the best personnel and the best engineering. But this isn’t necessarily limited only to billionaires, and the same arguably goes for support structures – for example having good managers, coaches and trainers.

Instead, perhaps the single biggest benefit from such enormous resource is track time. Testing restrictions that are designed to cut costs also give the wealthiest an obvious way to use their money to get an edge on the competition. When practice time within championships is limited and testing is prohibited outside of a handful of official sessions, only the most generously-backed drivers can afford to get on track, usually in older but relevant cars. Circuits have to be hired, cars sourced and maintained, and engineers and mechanics employed to run them.

When Stroll was competing in European Formula 3, the Prema squad owned by his father Lawrence used International Formula Master cars to give its drivers experience on tracks before they raced on them. As a result, a ban was put in place that even prevented drivers from racing in other series on circuits that were upcoming on the calendar.

But in FIA F2 and F3, where practice is limited to just 45 minutes each weekend and testing restricted to only a few days, a select few drivers with the necessary means are able to go into a season with significantly more track time under their belts than their rivals through private tests in older GP2 and GP3 cars that closely resemble the ones they will race.

Then there’s private F1 testing: Something that teams are rarely willing to carry out purely at their own expense, however highly they might rate a driver on their books. While such programmes, as Stroll carried out with Williams and Latifi did with several different teams, are primarily about preparing for eventual F1 debuts, there is a handy side benefit for drivers’ racing campaigns, too. While most of the F2 field had a two-month break from racecars before the final two rounds of the season in Bahrain, it’s understood that Mazepin was in the Middle East continuing his private Mercedes test programme, helping him to stay sharp before a positive first weekend back in F2 in which he climbed up to third in the championship.

Last season in F2, strong resources were particularly beneficial due to the introduction of the 18-inch wheels and tyres. With limited pre-season testing possible, it was something of a voyage of discovery for all the teams and drivers to try and understand how to get the most from the new tyres. While drivers undoubtedly play their part in developing that understanding, a good engineer is absolutely key. And the best engineers are expensive, and are naturally attracted to the teams (and, by extension, drivers) with the greatest resources.

For a good example of this, you only need to look at the contrasting fortunes of Mazepin and Jack Aitken last season. After earning credit for his work with Aitken and Campos in 2019, which yielded three race wins and fifth in the standings, engineer Jan Sumann was recruited by new entrant Hitech to work with Mazepin – who was reuniting with the team co-owned by his father Dmitry after a lacklustre rookie campaign with ART Grand Prix, in which he finished 18th in the championship.

Without the ability to attract a replacement from another team on the eve of the planned season start, Aitken and Campos had a difficult second year together as they struggled to find a setup that worked for the new package. Mazepin meanwhile made a huge step forward, especially with strong race pace and tyre management in a season where that seemed more important than ever. It would be unfair to put Mazepin’s improvement solely down to the recruitment of an engineer, but it can only have helped.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

It helped him to meet the superlicence points requirement that had previously been the only real barrier to him buying his way into F1. Although the much-maligned system was introduced in the wake of Max Verstappen’s rise, its one key benefit was that it made wealthy drivers work for their seats and ensured they couldn’t simply buy them. In the past, they just had to convince the FIA that they were ‘competent’, but now they had to win races.

This means that money alone is no longer enough, as the likes of Sean Gelael have demonstrated, but it has still been made too easy for rich drivers. In particular, by allowing drivers to score points from two different championships in a year – something that almost always requires a good budget. This move helped the otherwise-struggling FIA-supported Asian F3 championship, which can now position itself as an ‘easy’ place to claim extra superlicence points during the European off-season.

In Mazepin’s case, it enabled him to step down from F2 last winter and score 12 of the target 40 points by coming third while a far-less experienced and lesser-funded driver in Joey Alders won the championship. As it was, fifth in F2 last season paired with second in GP3 in 2018 proved to be enough to reach 40 points anyway, but the generous 12-point bonus helped to make an F1 seat look more viable last year than it would otherwise have been. At least three well-funded F2 drivers are set to deploy a similar strategy in the upcoming 2021 Asian F3 campaign.

As was demonstrated several occasions within a week of Mazepin’s Haas drive being announced, drivers with such backgrounds also don’t have the same pressure to hold themselves to the highest possible standards. Mazepin seemingly admitted as much when he said “I don’t have time to think about reputation” when racing – in reference to his dangerous defensive tactics in the season-ending F2 round that earned him penalties from the stewards and criticism from those watching. Most drivers simply cannot afford to display that sort of attitude. It might lead them to be described as ‘corporate robots’, but doing anything that could upset a potential backer is simply not an option for them.

Then followed the groping incident a few days later. Privilege was at play here too, for a driver in the public eye to think they could behave like that, post about it online and get away with it. The clamour for Mazepin to lose his seat was understandable but unrealistic, because F1 has become reliant on people like his father in order to keep teams afloat. Such drivers are effectively more like customers or investors than they are employees, and cannot be held to account in the normal way like any other sportsperson would be.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Clearly, not all offspring of billionaires push the boundaries of acceptability in the same way and shouldn’t be tarnished with that particular brush. Stroll is relatively squeaky-clean in this regard – although he has been a little stand-offish or arrogant with the media in the past – while Latifi comes across as a particularly pleasant and grounded individual to be around. But it’s a fact that such wealth does create liberties for those who want to abuse them.

None of this is to say that drivers from wealthy backgrounds should be made totally unwelcome. Take the case of Lando Norris, who receives none of the same criticism. That’s nothing to do with his nationality or his social media persona. Firstly, his father’s estimated wealth is only around 10 per cent of the aforementioned drivers, or less – not enough to seriously bankroll an F1 team even if he wanted to.

Still, Norris benefitted from many of the same advantages while climbing the ladder, including private testing all the way up to F1. But he also won championships nearly every year, and his worst season was finishing second in F2 as a rookie, which left few questions about his ability when he stepped into F1. Compare that to Mazepin, who has had off-years despite the resources at his disposal – seasons that would have killed off the careers of some lesser-funded drivers.

Most important though is that Norris has not paid a penny for his F1 drive. It is a credit to him and the management around him that he is in-demand because of his ability and not because of any money he can bring. A driver coming from a well-off background doesn’t have to offend. It’s all about whether they earned the opportunity on merit.

Yes, marketing guru-turned-McLaren boss Zak Brown clearly saw potential in Norris from a PR perspective and the fact that investment in his junior racing wasn’t needed helped make him particularly attractive. But that’s not the same as being signed because you are directly bringing money from your parents.

On that note, it would be remiss not to mention Guanyu Zhou too. After all, this writer considered him to be “F1 material” early in the F2 season, only for him to finish one place behind Mazepin in the final standings. He had many of the same benefits too, like private testing and a strong team built around him.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Zhou does differ in certain ways, though. While he does come from a wealthy family, which helps to fund his racing, he is courted by F1 not because of that but because of his nationality and the fact he is China’s strongest and most realistic prospect at present. His role with Renault brings benefits but also certain responsibilities and pressures. Indeed, Renault was not afraid to say it was disappointed with Zhou’s season, and he’ll need to improve if he’s to truly earn a place in F1 and be appreciated for his driving talents.

F1 has been far too cosy towards billionaire drivers. That’s not just from the likes of Steiner who are trying to keep their teams in business, but also from the very front of the grid. Toto Wolff’s attitude is particularly disappointing. It is his Mercedes team continuing to spend incredible amounts of money while already in a dominant position that puts other teams into difficulty trying to keep up.

To his credit, Wolff as Mercedes boss has stepped in to help talented young drivers such as Esteban Ocon or George Russell with funding. But he is also very defensive of wealthy drivers, which seems somewhat counterproductive: More effort is needed to keep Russell in a drive at Williams when others are offering greater money for his seat. Ocon was forced out of F1 for a year by Stroll’s arrival at what was Force India.

Wolff’s relationship with the Strolls is especially cosy and includes a personal stake in Aston Martin, and that helps to secure and validate Lance’s position within F1. He has also used Mercedes to help facilitate Mazepin’s rise by providing a personal testing programme. OK, it is true that welcoming such wealthy testers can help to finance junior programmes: Russell’s debut F1 test with Mercedes came alongside Latifi, while Christian Lundgaard has driven alongside Zhou for much of his private Renault programme. But there has been little evidence of that with Mazepin, even though both Ocon and Stoffel Vandoorne may have gained some limited mileage while serving as his coach.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Last year, Wolff defended Stroll, Latifi and Mazepin to the media, complaining about the “stigma” around them and arguing their merits. Such bizarre comments normalise their presence in F1 and pretend there’s not an issue. He said the situation had been worse “five or six years ago”, which is debatable considering the amounts of money involved. Most other ‘pay drivers’ have come and gone within just a few years.

If F1 is an elite sport – and for the likes of Lewis Hamilton to rightly be considered among the greatest athletes of the moment – then it should not be possible to buy a place on a team with family money. In no other sport is that the case – there is a big distinction between that and sponsorship or investment that is ‘earned’, even if it’s on the basis of nationality.

It’s also important for inspiring the next generation of drivers with realistic role models, rather than enforcing the image of F1 and motorsport in general as a rich kid’s playground – a perception Hamilton had been helping to change. Practical change at grassroots level is most important in that regard, but image matters a lot too.

Yes, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on F1’s income may help to explain why Haas has resorted to taking on Mazepin – but the arrivals of Stroll and Latifi onto the grid preceded this particular crisis. For too long, since manufacturer involvement decreased and true sponsorship all but disappeared, F1 has been too reliant on wealthy individuals to fund teams as a play thing. Once the likes of Vijay Mallya or Gene Haas exhausted their ability or will to keep spending, the likes of Lawrence Stroll and Dmitry Mazepin have stepped in with undesirable consequences.

More needs to be done to ensure that F1 teams can be self-sustainable and take drivers on merit alone. If the planned cost-cutting and revenue distribution measures – which are coming arguably 10 years too late – don’t work to achieve this, they should go harder.

Perhaps more importantly, junior single-seater racing could be made a more level playing field, through tackling the areas that give wealthy drivers an advantage over their competitors and allows them to get near F1. Or, go more radical and take money almost entirely out of the equation.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

The post Why Mazepin’s F1 seat should be a big wake-up call appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

In the latest Formula Scout Podcast, F1 journalist Edd Straw joins the team to discuss 2021’s hot topics

Straw brings a wealth of experience from stints at some of the biggest publications and podcasts in motorsport as the team discuss how the 2021 Formula 1 rookies – Formula 2 champion Mick Schumacher, his controversial Haas team-mate Nikita Mazepin and Red Bull/Honda starlet Yuki Tsunoda – will fare in their rookie seasons.

The two Haas drivers are expected to face a challenging season in the highest echelon of motorsport in what could well be another car lacking points-scoring pace from the American outfit, while Tsunoda is up against race-winner Pierre Gasly in a strong midfield team in AlphaTauri, which was often rivalling Ferrari in 2020.

In addition, what F2 provides to F1 in terms of data as a testbed is discussed – including knowledge ahead of F1’s new aerodynamic and mechanical era in 2022, and the new weekend format for F2 and fellow F1 support series FIA Formula 3 – and whether it could prove to show what direction F1 is going moving forward.

To close, our guest picks out some of the underrated drivers he worked with from his time covering the junior ranks – including Tim Bridgman (pictured below) – and speaks about his own brief career behind the wheel of a racing car.

Listen to the podcast below, and find it on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Photo: BMW AG

The post Podcast: How F1’s rookies will fare in 2021 feat. Edd Straw appeared first on Formula Scout.

20. David Vidales

New entry • Took Formula Renault double on stunning car racing debut

Photo: Renault / DPPI

Photo: Renault / DPPI

It was hard to find a more impressive single-seater debut in recent times than Vidales winning both races on his Formula Renault Eurocup bow at Imola. Especially when you consider that his switch from a planned Formula Regional Europe campaign came so late that he had already missed the first round of the season.

To some degree, the Spaniard lucked in by finding a berth with JD Motorsport, which looked super-strong on a track that rival teams hadn’t visited for many years. Team-mate William Alatalo scored his only two podiums of the season that weekend too.

But Vidales proved Imola was no fluke by scoring four more podiums over the following five races. They weren’t wins, but beating both Victor Martins and Caio Collet in a Eurocup race this year was a big ask for anyone, and he was the closest driver to them in the standings at the midway point.

Everything fell away a little bit for Vidales over the second half of the season. Nowhere was that clearer than on the return to Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend, when Vidales and JD didn’t get close to repeating their form from July. He got taken out at the first corner of the first race, then took Collet out on lap one of race two.

He was generally involved in a bit more contact than most, but that’s understandable for a driver who didn’t have a season or two of more frantic Formula 4 racing under his belt. More importantly, he impressed Prema enough to become its first FREC signing for 2021, making him a favourite for the newly-merged series.

Further reading
How history is repeating itself for Spain’s Formula 1 hopefuls

19. Gianluca Petecof

New entry • Survived budget fears to claim Formula Regional Europe title

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

Even if Petecof had run out of budget mid-season as many feared, he still would have come fifth in FREC such was his early form. The results may have tailed off once that extra sponsorship was secured, but he still won the title and was the strongest of the full-time drivers on the grid.

All four of his wins came in the first nine races, and either by a small margin or a substantial one he was the driver to beat in the opening three rounds at Misano, Paul Ricard and the Red Bull Ring. Five poles in a row demonstrated his single-lap prowess, and his race pace was very strong too.

The racecraft that had made him such a tricky rival to beat wheel-to-wheel in F4 wasn’t as aggressive as it used to be, but he didn’t have to really use it until his Prema team stopped being the dominant force in FREC. At that point you do wonder if Petecof needed to bring back some of his Schumacher-style ability in combat, but what he’d toned down there had made him a more rounded driver more capable of picking up results.

It wasn’t until the second half of the season that he finished a race lower than fourth, and he was one of two drivers to score points in all 23 races. Once his highly-rated team-mate Arthur Leclerc tried to put his mark on the title, Petecof responded calmly to just pick up more points and reduce any advantage his fellow Ferrari junior had pulled out.

Further reading
Inside the F3 title fight belonging to Ferrari’s F1 juniors

18. Franco Colapinto

Up 27 • F4 graduate came third in both TRS and Eurocup

Photo: Renault / DPPI

Photo: Renault / DPPI

Although he had a couple of outings while he was winning the Spanish F4 title in 2019, Colapinto could rightly be considered the best Regional F3 rookie in both the Toyota Racing Series and Formula Renault Eurocup this year.

Driving in TRS for Kiwi Motorsport with engineering backup from Eurocup squad MP Motorsport, Colapinto was a contender from the beginning, finishing second to Liam Lawson in the feature race at Highlands. His only win came from the front row of a reversed-grid encounter, where he had to fend off Lawson, but he went on to score six straight podiums over the final two rounds. Finishing third overall, he was closer to champion Igor Fraga’s points tally than he was to fourth-placed Yuki Tsunoda.

While his trip to New Zealand was supported by Toyota’s motorsport-mad Argentine division, the budget for the Eurocup was harder to come by, especially as he hadn’t secured a seat before the coronavirus pandemic took hold. But his management at Bullet got him onto the grid in time for the first race at Monza, and he won it.

He also came third in race two, but MP seemed to lack an experienced leader at times and the season was almost into its second half before Colapinto was back on the podium. But make the podium he did in each of the final six rounds, including a victory at Spa, and he was never outside the top four in the last three events.

Still only 17, Colapinto clearly has the talent to go a long way. He just needs the funding to match.

17. Nikita Mazepin

Re-entry (14th in ’18) • Big step forward in F2 made F1 move possible

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Even before behaviour described by his 2021 team as “abhorrent” – which is not reflected in his position on this list – Mazepin was continuing his reputation as an ultra-aggressive driver who sometimes went too far beyond the limits.

So often he did this, he was approaching a race ban by the time his second and final Formula 2 season concluded. His defensive antics in the final round in Bahrain, in particular, did not go down well with the masses or the stewards.

He also fell foul of the first rule of motor racing at Mugello – don’t crash into your team-mate. Funnily enough, that came after a superb victory the previous day when he lead a Hitech GP one-two with Luca Ghiotto just behind.

For all of the on-track controversy and the criticism, there were some stellar performances from Mazepin in 2020. After a major loss of confidence in a miserable campaign with ART last year, it took him just three rounds to find his way onto the podium for the first time. The next race weekend, he was an F2 winner and in the title mix.

Those two wins in feature races, as well as two P2s in feature races and two P2s in sprint races, were the obvious highlights but Mazepin put in some fine drives that went somewhat under the radar too – eighth at Monza from the back and charging from midpack to sixth in Spain among such drives.

It is pretty clear why he was given the nod for Haas next year when more-deserving drivers are available, but he went and earned the superlicence he needs and did so rather emphatically in the end – not even requiring the generous handful of points he received for coming third in Asian F3 at the start of the year.

His strong year, however, has been entirely overshadowed by his behaviour away from the racetrack, and that will continue to be the case for quite a while yet.

16. Jonny Edgar

New entry • Won ADAC F4 title under considerable pressure

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Taking up the plum Van Amersfoort Racing drive vacated by Dennis Hauger following a learning season in 2019 put the pressure on Red Bull junior Edgar to achieve transalpine F4 success this year, and he lived up to that expectation very well.

He laid down a marker with his double win in the opening ADAC round – after rookie team-mate Jak Crawford beat him in qualifying – and could have made it a hat-trick, as he was leading race three too before rain triggered a pitstop and then a red flag.

Edgar maintained his early points advantage for most of the season and duly claimed the title at the final round.

That’s simplifying things somewhat, because he actually had to overturn a deficit to Crawford in the very last race. But while he could easily be criticised for picking up costly damage in two fractional misjudgements while racing his rival in the final two rounds, he deserves enormous credit for the way he picked himself up and charged from seventh to second in the deciding race to grab the title.

But for the months lost to lockdown, which condensed the calendar and led to two date clashes, Edgar would have been able to fight for the Italian title too. As it was, he still came fourth and scored at a rate that would otherwise have made him runner-up.

15. Jak Crawford

New entry • Red Bull recruit shone in first season in Europe

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

For 15-year-old Crawford, his first season as a Red Bull junior and his first in Europe meant 10 months away from his native United States, living with his Van Amersfoort Racing team in the Netherlands all the way from March before the first lockdown hit until just before Christmas.

He certainly made the most of that time, pushing team-mate Edgar all the way to the final race in their fight for the ADAC F4 title, taking five wins there plus another two from non-clashing rounds of the Italian series.

Crawford came to Europe as well prepared as possible for a driver so young, with experience in both USF2000 and NACAM F4, but still had to learn a new car, new tracks and a different culture. But he wasted no time putting down a marker and claiming a double pole position for his European debut.

Understandably, there were some points lost and some missed opportunities to win early on. But in such an intense schedule, it was only a matter of weeks before Crawford found his stride. He impressively kept Edgar within sight and was in a position to capitalise when his rival tripped over him twice in the run-in.

Crawford might not have found a way forward in the crucial deciding race, but there were also many standout moments in races in Germany and also in Italy, where he fighting for wins on three out of his five appearances.

The potential is clear as he gets ready for an expected move to FIA F3 with Hitech for 2021 – with a finale in his home state of Texas to look forward to.

14. Gabriele Mini

New entry • Well-fancied karting graduate delivered Italian F4 crown

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

Mini’s karting pedigree, his Nicolas Todt patronage and his speed in early F4 tests made him the most eagerly-anticipated newcomer to single-seaters in 2020, and the first Italian to drive for Prema in six seasons of F4 justified his billing as he became the first native to be crowned Italian F4 champion.

A triple pole position on his debut at Misano maybe set the bar a little too high for what was to follow, as Mini was never dominant. But he was the championship’s only consistent frontrunner, putting a low-key second round at Imola to one side. On his return to the same circuit for the penultimate round three months later he achieved his best set of results: a win and two second-places enough to wrap up the title with a round to spare.

Mini also scored points in every race except one, when he was rear-ended from the lead at Monza, which is quite an achievement in such a hard-fought series made up of inexperienced drivers.

It’s that way in which the 15-year-old from Sicily managed his championship campaign so effortlessly, rather than his outright speed, which really stood out. Not that there was much wrong with his speed either, as he showed when he went to Germany and beat VAR’s Red Bull juniors at the first time of asking.

That there’s an expectation for Ferrari to sign Mini to its academy is understandable, but it’s safe to say that Maranello will be well aware of his talents. Todt is not one to rush his drivers more than is necessary, and a likely move up to Formula Regional next year with ART rather than with Mini’s compatriots at Prema will help to give him a more rounded experience as he climbs the ladder.

13. Caio Collet

Up 29 • Challenged a more experienced opponent for Formula Renault crown

Photo: Renault / DPPI

Photo: Renault / DPPI

Collet was in a fairly unenviable position this year: Tasked as a Renault junior with beating a driver who had been let go by the manufacturer because he finished second in the championship the year before.

In the end, he couldn’t do it, but there should be little shame in coming second to Victor Martins given that Collet is a year younger and a year less experienced.

His year didn’t exactly start well. He looked quick when the Toyota Racing Series began, but too many crashes took their toll and left him seventh in the standings. Then he was one of the Renault junior drivers forced to spend two weeks quarantined in a Tenerife hotel after a training camp.

Once the Eurocup season finally got underway, all of that was quickly forgotten about, and Collet took his opportunity to grab his first win at Monza and become the early championship leader.

In the middle of the season there was a run of five races in which Collet and Martins locked out the top two places. That Collet only won one of those hurt him in the championship, but the margin between the pair was usually much smaller than the one back to third place – most strikingly at Zandvoort.

Collet continued to challenge with his wins at Imola and Hockenheim, but he was thwarted by retirements through no fault of his own in the other races on those weekends. The resulting final margin of 44 points was unfair on Collet, who deserves to keep his Renault ties for a move up to FIA F3.

12. Liam Lawson

Up 8 • Made a valiant effort against Prema juggernaut in FIA F3

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Given what some of his FIA F3 rivals were able to achieve as rookies in 2020, Lawson’s season might be considered disappointing, but that’s unfair upon reflection.

At Hitech GP’s home circuit of Silverstone, Lawson proved what he could do when he had the car underneath him, defending stoutly from Oscar Piastri to win race one on the first weekend and finishing third one week later. A week after that he beat Logan Sargeant to second in Barcelona.

He could conceivably have been leading the championship by then. In the Red Bull Ring double-header, Hitech struggled in qualifying on a circuit that’s kind to tyres, but on both weekends Lawson recovered well into the points in race one before fighting for victory in race two. After sealing the deal on the opening Sunday, a small misjudgement wiped himself and Jake Hughes out seven days later.

He should have scored strongly at the Hungaroring too: he went from 11th to fourth at the start of race one before his engine blew up, and was fighting his way from the back and towards the points in race two when it failed him again.

Lawson was very strong in wheel-to-wheel combat – perhaps too strong at times, which cost him points at Monza. It was another difficult qualifying at Mugello that ultimately cost him fourth in the final standings though, despite the salvaging of another Sunday win.

Fifth place didn’t reflect that he was a consistent threat to Prema while single-handedly leading the Hitech effort. After a year that had started with him conceding his Toyota Racing Series crown to Igor Fraga, the end result might have been enough for Lawson to receive the dreaded phonecall from Helmut Marko, but all things point to a deserved step up to F2 next year with Hitech, forming an all-Red Bull line-up with Juri Vips.

11. Frederik Vesti

Up 8 • Finished very strongly in FIA F3 after mid-season dip 

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Vesti went missing in the middle of the FIA F3 season, effectively ending his championship bid, but he finished the year so strongly that he scored more points on Saturdays than any other driver – even though one of his three wins only counted for half-points.

As he had feared following winter testing, qualifying would prove to be Vesti’s downfall – although a similar weakness didn’t stop team-mate Piastri winning the title. Slowest of the Prema trio in qualifying for round one at the Red Bull Ring, Vesti made gains a week later to claim pole, only for the race to be cut short by the weather.

He was unlucky to be taken out by contact in both Hungaroring races, costing him championship ground on what was Piastri’s strongest weekend. A technical problem at Barcelona – where he was already running outside of the points anyway – left him 60 points adrift of the lead going into the final triple-header.

Vesti’s race pace was stronger than anybody’s, but he was far less effective than Piastri at making up positions. Or at least that was the case until he arrived in Italy and won race one at Monza from ninth on the grid, then at Mugello from third. By this point, he was undoubtedly Prema’s strongest driver – it just came a little too late.

The Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2020 has been compiled by Bethonie Waring, Craig Woollard, Elliot Wood, Josh Suttill and Peter Allen. Click here to view the rest of the list.

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Photos: Formula Motorsport Limited

Mick Schumacher beat Callum Ilott to emerge victorious after 24 races of a thrilling 2020 Formula 2 season. It was a championship full of title twists and brilliant racing. Who stood out most among it all?

The season was crammed full of chaotic races, unreliability, strategic battles and brilliant racing.

Formula Scout’s Craig Woollard and Josh Suttill attempt to unpack the 2020 season – from Guanyu Zhou’s misfortune in Red Bull Ring opener to that thrilling title finale in Bahrain – in the latest episode of the Formula Scout Podcast.

Among the discussion points is their explanation of Formula Scout’s top 10 drivers of the 2020 F2 season – taking into account each driver’s team and level of experience within the series. The below is a transcript of the discussion.

Listen to the podcast here, and also find it on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Castbox, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. At the bottom of article is a link to the video version of the review on YouTube.

Honourable Mentions

Josh Suttill: Juri Vips was solid on his debut. He’s going to be really strong next year when we’ll see a lot more from him. Luca Ghiotto was absolutely brilliant on certain weekends, and really reminded us why he’s been one of the top drivers over the last couple of years in the championship. It has never really worked out for him, he should have won the GP3 championship, should have got a bit more success over the past few years but it is what it is.

Jehan Daruvala was held back by engine issues for the majority of the season but finished the year with a well-deserved maiden F2 race win, which sets him up nicely for his sophomore year in 2021. A Formula 1 debut was a welcome reward for Jack Aitken, who had a torrid third F2 year with Campos Racing.

Ferrari junior Marcus Armstrong will be hoping his 2021 season delivers more than his miserable rookie F2 campaign in 2020 yielded. It started strongly with two podiums in the first two weekends, but he failed to register another top-three finish thereafter.

Key Percentage of team’s points scored (TP), Average qualifying pace (QA), Feature race points (R1P), Sprint race points (R2P)

10. Louis Deletraz SWITZERLAND Charouz Racing System
8th in standings, 134 points (2 fastest laps, 5 podiums) – TP 98%, QA 100.704% (13th), R1P 64 (10th), R2P 70 (3rd)

Photo: Getty Images

Craig Woollard: Took several podiums, really impressive at times with Charouz, who we didn’t necessarily expect a huge amount from this year. He was totally on top of Pedro Piquet, his team-mate as well. But a lack of a win or strong performances in qualifying, justifies him squeezing the top 10 but being no higher.

JS: I think it’s the first time he’s appeared on our end-of-season top 10 list in the past four years that he’s been in F2. It’s richly deserved, one of the best racers in the field, fantastic racecraft and some brilliant overtakes this year. But like you said, a little bit let down by his one-lap pace and Piquet levelling up [to him on pace] a little bit towards the end of the year. Brilliant elsewhere too outside of F2.

9. Guanyu Zhou China Virtuosi Racing
6th in standings, 151.5 points (1 win, 1 pole, 4 fastest laps, 6 podiums) – TP 43%, QA 100.425% (3rd), R1P 93 (6th), R2P 54.5 (5th)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

CW: Took a win at Sochi, had the pace to win at the Red Bull Ring as well. But I think having all of the pace in the world, but effectively going missing for half of the year justifies him only being ninth and no higher. Really should have been a lot more effective, especially on the weekends where Ilott made mistakes and simply wasn’t there at the end.

JS: Incredible to think that this was the driver who was not only the preseason favourite but also the one who followed that up properly in the first race. Then all just went away from him really. Struggled to put everything together, something always seemed to be lacking. A shame for Zhou, but let’s see next year, maybe it will be third time lucky.

CW: I think it will be a last-chance saloon for Zhou next year.

8. Nikita Mazepin RUSSIA Hitech GP
5th in standings, 164 points (2 wins, 2 fastest laps, 6 podiums) – TP 61%, QA 100.546% (8th), R1P 118 (4th), R2P 51.5 (6th)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

CW: This position isn’t defined by his off-track “activities”, but more defined by the fact that – whilst he was very strong in the races at times – his aggression on the circuit overstepped the mark a few times. Lack of strong qualifying results at times as well, although I do think a much improved second year as a whole. There are drivers higher-up on this list who performed better, either with lesser machinery or much less experience.

JS: Yeah he would be last [on our list] if this was off-track conduct. But he takes a place in the top 10, deservedly so because it was a solid year. Really good drives; his wins at Silverstone and Mugello were very good. He took defensive driving to the limit, over the limit but he seemed to getaway with it for the most part. Very lucky to not get a race ban. These 11 penalty points he’s got from F2 won’t mean anything when he’s in F1. He hasn’t changed his driving style at all, as we saw from the final round, so I guess what we’re going to see in F1 is much the same driver as we saw throughout this year.

7. Dan Ticktum BRITAIN DAMS
11th in standings, 96.5 points (1 win, 1 fastest lap, 4 podiums) – TP 84%, QA 100.639% (10th), R1P 45 (11th), R2P 51.5 (6th)

CW: This might be a surprising addition to this list. Incredibly effective in sprint races on weekends where DAMS didn’t have the outright pace. Was unlucky to not win more than once, with the fuel issue at Monza. Generally just had a quietly effective campaign, and was able to really extract the most from the DAMS package.

JS: I wouldn’t say it was a quiet year for him! But I know what you mean, he’s been impressive in ways which can’t always be seen in the results or the TV. People tell him to change, get his head down and focus on driving, that’s just not him. Ticktum wouldn’t be Ticktum if he did. Unfortunately, the frustration did get to him at times, but a very good season. Difficult to judge with not a strong – nor reliable – barometer alongside him at DAMS. But when Vips was thrown in, Ticktum held his own very well and we’ll see what he can do next year at Carlin. It could be quite a formidable force.

6. Christian Lundgaard DENMARK ART Grand Prix
7th in standings, 149 points (2 wins, 1 pole, 2 fastest laps, 6 podiums) – TP 74%, QA 100.519% (6th), R1P 73 (8th), R2P 72 (2nd)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

CW: At times, he was absolutely sensational, able to extract performances out of the ART package that simply didn’t seem feasible. Obviously took a couple of wins, some really strong qualifying performances as well. Seemed a little bit at sea at times in some of the lower-speed circuits. I think that was more down to the ART package. Simply crushed the highly-rated Marcus Armstrong in the other car. I said at the start of the year that this is the year where Lundgaard really starts to come onto the F1 radar. Obviously missed out on an F1 drive, but in the future, who knows, especially if Esteban Ocon doesn’t perform next year.

JS: Yeah so we’ve got [Oscar] Piastri coming in next year in F2, another Renault junior, but Lundgaard has set himself up very well to lead the Renault charge in the series next year. He’s stamped his authority over Zhou, he’s the next-in-line now. If we did a live top 10 ranking during the season, he’d be no’1 at times and drop outside the top 10 at others. Very up and down, but I feel like those lows will be ironed out during his second year, and he’ll come on pretty strong.

5. Felipe Drugovich BRAZIL MP Motorsport
9th in standings, 121 points (3 wins, 1 pole, 1 fastest lap, 4 podiums) – TP 72%, QA 100.454% (4th), R1P 79 (7th), R2P 38 (10th)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

CW: Won several times this year, took a pole position with a package that seemed to be nowhere last year. Drugovich was absolutely brilliant this year, especially after such a difficult FIA Formula 3 campaign last year. He showed the form that he showed in 2018 when he utterly decimated the Euroformula opposition there.  I totally agree with Ilott, F1 teams need to be looking at Drugovich. Drugovich was one of the stars of the season.

JS: Everyone knows he’s very talented from his days in ADAC Formula 4 and the way he won the Euroformula championship. But we didn’t expect him to be this strong with package that he had. MP did a really good job too, credit to them. Drugovich will be one of the title favourites next year, especially with the Virtuosi package that he’s inheriting. He just needs a more consistent year next year, and I’m sure that will come with experience.

4. Robert Shwartzman RUSSIA Prema
4th in standings, 177 points (4 wins, 1 fastest lap, 6 podiums) – TP 45%, QA 100.602% (9th), R1P 117 (5th), R2P 60 (4th)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

CW: Won more races than anyone, with four wins to his name. Some of those came in fortuitous circumstances, but at the end of the day, Shwartzman was the one to pounce when others faltered. Sometimes he was unlucky in qualifying, sometimes he was just not there in qualifying. That really defined much of the second half of his season. I think if we’d done this ranking based on the first half of the year, then Shwartzman would be number one, but it just did not happen for him in the latter half of the year. Came back strong in Bahrain, but it didn’t quite happen at points when it needed to happen. Had the mechanical problem in Mugello, recovered to just outside the points. It’s not totally clear cut that Shwartzman is the title favourite for next year, given the potential that so many other drivers have shown.

JS: Those slightly fortuitous wins perhaps flattered the first half of his season. But the way he won them was brilliant. Perhaps the second Red Bull Ring weekend sums up his season perfectly. The fact that he won the feature race then in the sprint race, he spun out at Turn 1 on lap one. It was a very mixed bag, but the highs were very high and even higher than Schumacher. But unfortunately, he had a lot more low peaks than him.

3. Callum Ilott BRITAIN Virtuosi Racing
2nd in standings, 201 points (3 wins, 5 poles, 6 podiums) – TP 57%, QA 100.218% (1st), R1P 138 (3rd), R2P 43 (8th)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

CW: Some people might find this a slightly harsh judgement. But I think it’s entirely fair, on the basis that he had all the speed in the world and he was able to deliver it in qualifying. But there were just too many mistakes at the end of the day. Too many weekends where he was unable to punish Schumacher. I do think, whilst he was able to pounce and take victories, especially that brilliant one at Silverstone, there was the opportunity to have so much more. He just did not perform to the same standard that he needed to really assert himself as the absolute championship favourite when it counted.

JS: Stunning pace, arguably better than de Vries last year and even what George Russell had in 2018. His pace advantage was incredible, but he wasn’t able to convert it into the victories when it mattered. Very rarely made any mistakes in qualifying, but unfortunately, that didn’t really matter that much because he made a few big ones in the races which were very costly and the timing of those, was very bad. Definitely unlucky sometimes and I hope a year on the sidelines next year, leads to a seat in 2022 because he deserves it on the basis of this year. Especially if we said three drivers from this year should graduate to F1, you’ve got to say it has to be Schumacher, Yuki Tsunoda and Ilott.

2. Mick Schumacher GERMANY Prema
1st in standings, 215 points (2 wins, 2 fastest laps, 10 podiums) – TP 55%, QA 100.542% (7th), R1P 140 (2nd), R2P 75 (1st)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

CW: Our champion at number two might seem like a harsh one, but there was one other driver who stood out just that little bit more for us. The lack of performance in qualifying grades Schumacher down a little bit, the fact he’s in his second year in F2, and there were a few weekends where Schumacher’s performances weren’t quite up to scratch. Getting usurped by Shwartzman in the early stages especially is what gives him the number two spot.

JS: You can argue it both ways [if he deserves to be number one]. The race starts for example. You can say Schumacher gained an awful lot of points just from having good starts. Is that down to him? Is that down to the team? Down to a combination of both? But actually if you look at races, like the first Bahrain feature race, he dives it down the inside of Turn 1, has brilliant spacial awareness, and gains a whole heap of positions. That’s on him, that his driving ability, and his awareness. Last year he looked unsure and lost. This year, he seemed assured, he formed a championship picture in his mind and he was taking it in a very Shwartzman [2019 F3]-esque manner and it seemed to pay off, very nicely for him. He did crumble a little bit at the end, which does knock him down a bit. But ultimately, did have a lot of bad luck too, the fire extinguisher going off at the Red Bull, being on the wrong strategy in Hungary etc. A truly deserving champion, but not quite, in our opinion, the best driver of the season.

1. Yuki Tsunoda JAPAN Carlin
3rd in standings, 200 points (3 wins, 4 poles, 1 fastest lap, 7 podiums) – TP 74%, QA 100.420% (2nd), R1P 145 (1st), R2P 39 (9th)

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

CW: Finished third in the championship in only his second year racing in Europe. The way Tsunoda has graduated up the ranks, going from F4 to F3 to F2 to F1, all in successive years, that’s exactly what the FIA hopes to get from the junior single-seater ladder. He’s scored more points than anybody else in feature races, which is very telling. There were a few mistakes, such as the one with Daruvala in the opener and the horrible spin he had in Bahrain qualifying too. He was given the tough task from Helmut Marko to get a superlicence and that’s what he did. And I think he did it in very fine style. Unlucky not to win more races than anybody else when you take into consideration the one he lost in Austria. He took a lot of inspiration from Anthoine Hubert and adapted that into his own driving style. Very fitting that he takes the number one spot.

JS: Absolutely fantastic throughout the year. Look at a race like Austria in the wet, where he had no radio and still drove brilliantly. Look at Spa, where he went toe-to-toe with Mazepin and came out on top. His brilliant Sakhir weekend, if there wasn’t that spin in Bahrain qualifying, we could be talking about Yuki Tsunoda as the 2020 Formula 2 champion. But instead, we’re talking about Yuki Tsunoda as a 2021 F1 driver and I think that’s a pretty good reward for a great rookie season. We might see him struggle at the start of his F1 career in the first couple of races, but no doubt, he’ll reach that really high level and show that incredible adaptability that he’s shown throughout his F3 year with Jenzer last season and also this year with Carlin in F2. Very bright future ahead for an impressive talent.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

When a driver who doesn’t make the top five on pace wins the most prestigious junior single-seater title in the world, it must leave the opposition scratching their heads. Can the data explain what happened?

The 2020 Formula 2 season will always be remembered for not only its unique place in history by occurring in the middle of a global pandemic, but also in how its title fight played out and that it added another title to the Schumacher family legacy.

It may have been a statistically unimpressive season for the eventual champion, but speak to drivers and engineers and you’ll know that this year F2 has been more complex than ever, and therefore more work than ever has been required to get on top of the demands of the Dallara F2 2018, its Mechachrome-tuned engine, the new 18-inch wheels and the tyres fitted to them.

In some ways this is the most professional the series has ever been, especially since the standard of the paying drivers at the bottom of the grid was bounced back from 2019’s nadir.

But for the champion to be only the second in the 54-year history of Formula 1’s primary feeder series to not even qualify on the front row, and then only being the seventh best on average in qualifying and a fortunate fourth on race pace, does beg the question of what they did to win the title.

In the case of Mick Schumacher, it was a combination of lightning-fast starts, strong tyre management and often not being quite fast enough to challenge for feature race wins. That put him a few places higher up the grid for the sprint races, where he hoovered up more points than anyone else. The drivers that were faster than him simply weren’t picking up the points.

Prema never had the fastest car in qualifying trim, meaning Schumacher wouldn’t have been considered a pole threat anyway at most circuits, but on a few occassions he also didn’t put the key lap together as he should have. Were those errors costly? Not really.

Of the drivers Schumacher was regularly qualifying behind, not many of them had the pace to stay at the front in the feature races. Schuacher would pass at least one of those on the first lap (his opening lap gains averaged out at 1.375 places per race), underpinned first by his brilliant clutch control and then by great spatial awareness that always kept him out of trouble.

He then often had more freedom to choose when to pit if he was stuck in traffic, as Prema tended to be kinder to its tyres in races than some of its rival teams.

But this wasn’t always the case; in Sochi a grip miscalculation from Schumacher meant he pitted on the same lap as team-mate Shwartzman. That compromised the Russian’s pitstop and pretty much ended his title ambitions too.

Sochi was the most convincing display of Schumacher’s on-track ability though, with his best qualifying result of third being earned before a second win in five races in the feature race. That set him up as the title favourite ahead of the back-to-back Bahrain rounds that would end the season.

Both he and main title rival Callum Ilott succumbed to the pressure at times in Bahrain, and it was the title outsiders who excelled to keep themselves in contention far longer than had been expected. Despite qualifying last for the Bahrain round after spinning on his first flying lap, Carlin’s Yuki Tsunoda brought himself up to second place in the season’s qualifying pace averages with pole in the finale, and with a win and a second place he then came just one point short of beating Ilott to the title runner-up spot.

Ilott had been the benchmark in qualifying, with five poles to Tsunoda’s four, and was usually one of the fastest in race conditions too. Over the season, Ilott was on average 0.218% off the absolute qualifying pace. Schumacher only even got that close to pole once.

Qualifying ‘supertimes’

The same went in the races, with Ilott’s average being the benchmark at 100.489%. For two third of the season Schumacher couldn’t even get match that in individual performances. But the inconsistency of their rivals meant Schumacher’s race pace was fourth fastest on average behind rookies Tsunoda and Shwartzman. And even that position comes with an asterisk.

Schumacher began the title-deciding race on Bahrain’s Outer layout with a storming start as per usual, moving up a spot to take second place through the first corner. He then locked his front and rear brakes heavily on the entry to Turn 4, almost crashing into DAMS’ race leader Dan Ticktum, dropping back to third and immediately torturing his tyres.

Rather than conserve his rubber from then on, Schumacher instead pushed to reclaim second from Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala. The Indian’s frontrunning pace had come after early-season issues where he was down on power was resolved by convincing F2 he needed a new engine for the second half of the season. His improved results proved a point in more way than one.

On lap eight of 34 of the Bahrain race those positions swapped again, with Schumacher’s car squirming as soon as he returned to the throttle out of corners. Futher lock-ups meant he dropped another three spots as the race entered its second half, and he dived into the pits before his tyres got to the point where spinning off would have been an inevitability.

After that pitstop he had the freshest rubber of anyone, and on a track that was grippier than at any other point in the preceding week-and-a-half. His recovery drive to a lowly 18th earned him the title, and his pace during that final stint of the season was over 1% faster than the best of the drivers who didn’t need to pit. That equated to a huge 0.672s advantage over the short, usually 1m05s lap, and massively skewed his season average given all of his rivals were able to make their tyres last the full race distance without too much of a pace drop-off.

Take his pre-pitstop pace, which was among the fastest anyway as he pushed his tyres to the limit, and a more accurate picture emerges. Even more so if we take into account an anonymous result for Ticktum in Sochi, as explored here.

Benchmark driver Ilott’s average race pace would now be at 100.436%, a number unimpacted by the various startline and pitstop stalls that cost him lots of points and ultimately the title this year.

In second place on race pace would be Ticktum on 100.609%, whose score sheet only shows one win and 45 feature race points, a tally bettered by half of the grid, and had the opposite startline form to Schumacher as he struggled to feed temperature into his tyres and lost ground at the start of most races – usually from low qualifying positions too.

Then it’s Shwartzman on 100.662%, with a season almost the opposite to Schumacher’s as it started strongly with two impressive feature race wins but then got progressively worse until a bounceback to frontrunning form in Bahrain. His four wins was the most anyone got in 2020 (team-mate Schumacher only got two), and his early successes left a mark on history.

AlphaTauri-bound Tsunoda got faster and faster the longer he was in an F2 car, and his average of 100.676% was simply remarkable given he was racing in Japanese Formula 4 two years ago.

Series veteran Luca Ghiotto didn’t show new team Hitech GP’s pace straight away – there were literal cobwebs to deal with between the squad’s first running of its cars at the Bahrain pre-season test in March and then July’s Red Bull Ring season opener – and after scoring its first point in its fourth F2 race it then took back-to-back wins at the Hungaroring and Silverstone.

Like DAMS it didn’t often do well in qualifying. That sacrifice came in return for a set-up that allowed Ghiotto and Nikita Mazepin to test the limits of the tyres in the races. Ghiotto ended up fifth fastest on average, at 100.724%.

Behind him in sixth was Schumacher, on 100.772%. Now that did include his race-topping performance in Sochi, and several other races where he was bang on the pace, but leaves more questions than answers. Was Schumacher sometimes racing at 95%, knowing he didn’t need to go full attack? Not even once according to the man himself, nor his Prema team boss.

Ferrari Driver Academy head Marco Matassa said differently though, claiming Schumacher “worked out in which races he should attack and take risks and in which it was better to settle for fewer points and drive more cautiously”. He also said the season reminded him of the “cautious start” Schumacher made to his 2018 FIA European Formula 3 title triumph, which had an average finishing position of 7.4 in its first half that turned around to 2.7 in its second half after five consecutive wins.

The rolling race pace average

The post Analysis: Was Mick Schumacher a worthy winner of the F2 title? appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Nikita Mazepin has been docked 10 seconds for aggressive moves in the Formula 2 feature race at Bahrain, dropping him from third to ninth.

The Hitech GP driver forced Carlin’s Tsunoda off track as they battled for the lead late, not long after ART Grand Prix’s Christian Lundgaard had unlapped himself on the pair.

Mazepin’s defence didn’t stop Tsunoda from getting through, and it was the latter putting all four wheels off the circuit while overtaking that required a steward investigation.

“Having considered the matter extensively, the stewards determined that car #7 (Tsunoda) started a pass to the right of car #24 (Mazepin) on the pit straight and established a significant part of his car alongside car #24 while #24 was moving to the right in a blocking manoeuvre,” a stewards document read.

“Car #24 continued moving to the right until his right side tyres crossed the edge of the track, thereby forcing car #7 completely off the track,” it continued.

The stewards noted Tsunoda would have passed legally had Mazepin not forced him off, and so Mazepin was penalised five seconds for the offence.

A further 5s was handed out for a move against MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich at Turn 1 which resulted in contact.

“The stewards determined that car #15 (Drugovich) started a pass to the right of car #24,” another document read.

“Car #24 moved to the right in a blocking manoeuvre at the same time and in the process moved to the track edge. Car #15, who had established some amount of overlap in the pass attempt, was forced to slow to avoid a collision and was, therefore, hindered.”

Drugovich inherits third following Mazepin’s penalties, and DAMS’ Dan Ticktum takes pole for the reversed grid sprint race by rising to eighth.

Penalty points were added to Mazepin’s licence, bringing his total up to 11 – one shy of receiving a ban. He’s also dropped down the standings.

In the post-race press conference, Mazepin said: “From my perspective things happen so quickly there on the track, especially when the speeds are over 300kph so, unfortunately, I don’t have time to think about reputation.

“I think about defending my position on-track, think about the rules and to think to finish the race.”

Revised race results (48 laps)

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Christian Lundgaard finished 19th in Formula 2’s Bahrain feature race, but he impacted the lead battle by unlapping himself in a move a rival said was something “never seen before”.

The Renault Formula 1 junior stalled from sixth on the grid, which dropped him to last and eventually a lap down. He had the pace to fight back though, and towards the end of the 48-lap race came up behind leaders Nikita Mazepin and Yuki Tsunoda and managed to pass both.

Tsunoda seized the opportunity to pass Mazepin for victory – in a move under investigation – after Lundgaard came through to unlap himself on his newer tyres, and Hitech GP driver Mazepin pinned his loss firmly on Lundgaard’s actions.

“I can say that I had everything under control until something that I’ve never seen before in my single-seater career – a guy trying to unlap himself, obviously because he is fighting with us in the championship – which I will say is a bit of a not-nice move,” said Mazepin.

“Because I couldn’t anymore use an advantage of having the clean air because I didn’t have it, I was just, to be honest, a sitting duck. I was bit lost at what to do.

“I obviously didn’t want to fight him because he’s on fresher tyres. But anyway, it put me in a position where I wasn’t really able to fight and defend, and ever since that moment things started to become tough. I finished where I did [in third place].”

Carlin’s Tsunoda explained how Lundgaard’s charge influnced his own hunting down of Mazepin for the lead after passing Prema’s Robert Shwartzman for second.

“It was good and then after that [pass] I felt the tyre still had potential to catch Nikita, but it was not a big difference compared to him so I just tried to not do mistakes and catch little by little and finally – Lundgaard was not fighting for position but he passed me and Nikita, and when he overtook Nikita I got more of a chance and I used that chance and I overtook him,” was Tsunoda’s description of events.

Mazepin later said in the post-race press conference that the whole situation was a “grey zone”.

“He was entitled to do what he did, he’s obviously fighting for his career, and I don’t have any hard feelings.

“I’m disappointed with myself because I don’t think I’ve done a good enough job, clearly not because I lost the position.

“However that’s a grey zone, that’s the first ever race you saw a car deciding to unlap itself from the leaders. And that’s kind of, let’s say, not a gentleman’s move because you’re not in contention of this current race. But it is what it is and I definitely don’t see an interest and a point to speak to him [Lundgaard].”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Only one of Nikita Mazepin and Yuki Tsunoda can remain in Formula 2 title contention after Saturday’s feature race, each requiring victory to do so, but neither are ruling themselves out.

Both need victory and points for fastest lap in the feature race, and with championship leader Mick Schumacher scoring nothing and Callum Ilott finishing off the podium, to extend their chances to the season-ending sprint race.

If that occurs, then the feature race victor would have to also get the maximum score in the sprint race while Schumacher once again scores nothing and Ilott finishes second or lower (depending on his feature race result) to win the title.

But it’s Tsunoda and Mazepin who fill the feature race front row, with Ilott qualifying ninth and Schumacher down in 18th.

“I think you know me reasonably well by now that there is no way that I am going to be writing the chances off for myself before the mathematical chances are out, that’s for sure,” Hitech GP’s Mazepin said in the post-qualifying press conference.

“To be honest, I don’t want to sound like I’m the wrong man for the job, but I’m not really thinking about the title.”

He later added: “I’m going to be believing in it until the mathematical chances run out. I hope they don’t, and the belief has been there and will be there.”

Poleman Tsunoda, like Mazepin, was more focused on beating his rival in the race ahead rather than the title picture.

“I don’t think [Ilott and Schumacher qualifying poorly] makes any difference for me,” said the Carlin driver.

“I’m really happy for the pole, but still the gap to P1 in the points is quite big. So, I just push to the end, I don’t think much about P1 [in the championship], I just drive as fast as possible and drive for the team.”

Tsunoda topped free practice before qualifying, and said “it’s a really big thing” to take pole in what Formula Scout understands is his final F2 appearance for the time being.

The pair were also asked about their victory battle at Spa-Francorchamps earlier this year, where Tsunoda claimed the win after Mazepin was penalised for his defence of the race lead, and how they intend to avoid a repeat of their ‘clash’.

“Well I think two things, first there was not a crash, so I would like to correct that. There hasn’t been contact. and second I’d like to hope Yuki doesn’t cry on the radio like he did last time,” Mazepin responded.

Tsunoda replied laughing, saying: “Well, I think we had a tiny bit of contact but we didn’t have a big crash. I won’t change any style, driving style and overtaking style. I will learn from that, but I don’t change my style, so I think if I drive as fast as possible and make a gap I don’t think he will overtake me so I will just drive fast.”

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