Who is everybody?

A driver preview split by car colours, mainly based on what the drivers think of themselves. If you can’t be bothered to read this but want to know who you should support, here is a flowchart for you. It’s definitely 100% correct.

Red cars

Mercedes junior Frederik Vesti is back for his second year of F2. So far Mercedes seem to have been pretty chill about his taking the time to learn and develop, but maybe they’re just too distracted by their F1 car to worry about whether Frederik is winning the F2 championship.

Oliver Bearman has exceptional talent. His (website’s) words, not mine. I say he’s apparently not lacking confidence, although he’s been pretty successful to date and secured a place in the Ferrari Academy so maybe he’s right.

Blue cars

Brother of F1 star Charles and a Ferrari Academy member, I’m going to be permanently confused that Arthur Leclerc‘s car is not red.

Amaury Cordeel came 23rd in F3 in 2021 and 17th in F2 in 2022. Surely that means he will win 2023?

Brown (!?) cars

Roy Nissany is just hanging out in F2 so he can be close to F1 when they let him jump in the Williams for practice sessions.

Who even knows how to summarise all the marketing spiel that Brad Benavides has managed to craft. He apparently has a lot of visions and missions though, so if he ever quits racing he will no doubt have an excellent career as a CEO.

Red (Bull) cars

It was Carlton Jackston “Jak” Crawford‘s dad who got him into racing, according to his Red Bull profile, “He used to take me around to the NASCAR shops when we lived in Charlotte and bought me a ton of small-scale cars from the race shops.” Watch out Sargeant because Crawford is waiting to take your crown as Americanest on the F1 grid.

The first line of Isack Hadjar‘s profile on the Red Bull website states: “I was always interested in cars but not particularly the racing, because of the movie Cars.” That’s it. I can’t go any further, I feel like I’m a century too old.

Last year, Ayumu Iwasa got the Anthoine Hubert award for being the best F2 rookie. The previous winners were Zhou, Tsunoda and Piastri, which means Iwasa is basically a guaranteed F1 driver already.

Red (Bull) and yellow cars

Red Bull have signed up some new young drivers this year. I’m sure that’s no worry for all the old ones, especially not with Zane Maloney coming second in F3 last year and also apparently one of the official reasons to “Visit Barbados“. He doesn’t sound like a threat at all.

Also new to the Red Bull junior team is Enzo Fittipaldi, but I maintain the same thing I said about him in last year’s preview: he is the grandson of F1-great Emerson Fittipaldi and is nicknamed “little shark”. What more reasons do you need for supporting him?

Red (Bull) and orange cars

Dennis Hauger didn’t win everything last year like I said he would. No doubt we’re both disappointed in our failures.

Orange and black and black and orange cars

Someone who definitely doesn’t need to worry about the new Red Bull juniors is Jehan Daruvala, who has already been booted out of the programme. He’ll be attempting to do a Drugovich by switching to MP Motorsport and climbing the ladder sans F1 team support.

Special shout out to Van Amersfoort Racing and their excellent line up of Richard Verschoor and Juan Manuel Correa. What’s not to like about this team? I’m not biased.

Mini Alfa Romeo cars

Just a year ago Théo Pourchaire was one of those “omg he’s so young and so fast” people, but now everyone just expects him to win, otherwise his career is over. Plus he’s an ancient 19 years old.

Mini Alpine cars

Last year’s F3 winner Victor Martins is a “true champion,” apparently because he was also a French gymnastics champion when he was ten. For some reason he would also seriously like to remind us that “every detail counts”. Honestly his whole website is gold. Well done Team Martins.

Jack Doohan has been spending all his time hanging out with F1 team Alpine and probably glaring at Martins if he tries to come close.

Colours that match their drivers’ flags cars

Roman Staněk only claims to be “One of the most talented Czech racing drivers” on his website. He needs to take some inspiration from Martins and Bearman.

Most people only have a podcast side-hustle when they have a boring full-time job, not Clément Novalak, who seems to be having fun all the time. I’m not jealous.

Cars with white on

The younger brother of Arjun Maini, let’s hope Kush has more success than Arjun did last time we saw him in F2.

There will always be a special place in F2 for Ralph Boschung. Always.