Obviously it’s impossible to hype the F2 finale up as much as the F1, but I will try… With just one round left to go, Oscar Piastri was a mere 51.5 points ahead of his competitors…. forget it. F1 had controversy, drama and a bitter title fight. F2 did not and it was a wonderful place to enjoy racing, except for Enzo Fittipaldi, who unfortunately was still recovering from last week’s crash and being subbed for by Richard Verschoor and his upbeat approach to life…
A long time ago, on a race track far, far away, young racing drivers battled to win points that could one day earn them the right to call themselves FIA Formula 2 Champion 2021. The history of the races has long since disappeared, with just a few tales remaining, shared between those with distant memories of reverse grids and ultra soft tyres. It was believed that the championship had vanished forever, until the points tally, etched into FIA stone, was found in the sands of Saudi Arabia. With much rejoicing, excitement and condemnation from human rights watchdogs, it was demanded that a new circuit be built and the Formula 2 championship could finally near completion. Distance, borders and an out-of-control virus raging through the world were not enough to keep the Formula 2 drivers from reassembling, only budget could come between F2 drivers and their destiny. Four were lost as they tried to scramble their sponsors and fight with younger, richer Formula 3 drivers who had heard of the legendary Formula 2 championship and were prepared to go to any lengths to experience it for themselves, but the one they call Oscar Piastri prevailed, returning with a 36 (ish) point lead and a determination to conclude the championship before it became nothing more than a myth…
F2 is back at Silverstone and it’s been so long since the last round that Théo Pourchaire’s hand, which he broke during the Feature Race in Azerbaijan, has pretty much healed and he was cleared to race. Jüri Vips said the long break had been boring, with just “sim and gym,” whereas Robert Shwartzman said he had been really busy with “sim and gym.” I guess Red Bull’s Milton Keynes sim and gym isn’t as inspiring as Ferrari and Maranello for some reason…
Gianluca Petecof’s tale of woe continued with him running out of money and being forced to give up his F2 seat. Who needs talented drivers when you can have rich ones? Enter Matteo Nannini who seems to have found some more money to fund the extravagance that is his parallel F2 and F3 seasons, having recently dropped his F2 campaign because it’s MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE to do one racing series, never mind two…
With only one round of F2 and F3 completed, Matteo Nannini gave up his ambitious (i.e. expensive) attempt at competing in both series and withdrew from F2 ahead of the Monaco weekend. The balance was therefore restored, with F3 once more becoming a stepping stone to F2 and Jack Aitken returning to fill Nannini’s vacated seat at HWA, because F2 had been missing some of its familiar old faces (yes I’m nostalgic for the days of Ghiotto and Markelov)…
The first race of the season was all about trying to explain the new format, which CEO Bruno Michel promised us would make sense once we actually watched it, but really it was just a distraction from the fact that all the cars are now blue, so not only would we not understand why the drivers were in the grid in the order they were, but we also wouldn’t even know who they were. (I’m just joking guys, I really like the new format and a grid of 18 blue cars)…
The start of the new F2 season is just around the corner, with more than half of last year’s field returning to fight for their F1 dreams, but what about the rest?
Mick has never been afraid to attempt an overtake. Luckily (or maybe not) for everyone, he has really finessed his skills over the course of his F2 career, going from clumsy accidents to overtaking the whole grid on the first lap and stealthily taking the 2020 F2 championship crown. Let’s relive every moment…
The golden rule of motorsport, “never hit your teammate”. Tell that to the F2 drivers. Teammate crashing was so prevalent this season I didn’t even need to research this post. These are just the ones I remember happening, who knows what other dark things lurked in the chaos of this season’s races…
The moment everyone had been either over-excitedly waiting for (Wow!! The championship decider on this completely crazy weird new chaos track!!) or generally grumbling about (What!? The championship decider on this completely crazy weird new chaos track!?) finally arrived. The randomness of the whole situation was further enhanced by Lewis Hamilton getting COVID and the driver shuffling that then ensued, resulting in Jack Aitken being promoted to F1 duties at Williams and my favourite F2 blogger Ralph Boschung making an early comeback with Campos (having previously announced that he would have the seat in 2021). Oh and of course we had the small matter of who was going to win the F2 championship to think about…
