Written by Olly Radley, edited by Morgan Holiday
For the past few decades, 90% of Formula 1’s rookies have come through its multiple feeder series, the most common of them being the Formula 2 or GP2 series. The likes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have made their way to F1 via these championships, as well as Charles Leclerc and George Russell more recently. This season, it’s looking like the only F2 driver that will progress into F1 is Guanyu Zhou who is second in the standings and is heavily linked with the second Alfa Romeo seat. Next season however, it’s looking increasingly likely that most of this season’s frontrunners (the likes of Shwartzman and Ticktum) will be moving on and leaving the F2 championship. This will mean that next season there will be a nearly completely new-look grid of drivers and it presents an opportunity for someone to really prove themselves. As we get closer to the end of this season, we begin to hear more rumours concerning next year’s grid and so today I’ll look through these and tell you about the 2022 Formula 2 grid and who is going where.
Written by Olly Radley, Edited by Morgan Holiday
We’ll start off with Prema, the current Teams’ championship leaders and reigning champions. With Oscar Piastri confidently leading the championship, he will not be able to compete next season if he does end up winning the championship. If this happens he will almost definitely be replaced by this year’s F3 champion, Dennis Hauger, who raced for Prema and dominated the season. Shwartzman also seems to be on his way out and the replacement that the Italian outfit seem to be eyeing up is Jehan Daruvala. The Red Bull junior raced for Prema on his way to third in the 2019 F3 championship and is set to return to the team for the 2022 F2 championship, where he’ll hopefully get a really good shot at the championship, which he hasn’t yet been able to do.
Next up we have Uni-Virtuosi who have been second placed in the Teams’ championship for the past few seasons. With Guanyu Zhou set for an F1 drive, he will likely not be returning for a 4th F2 season with the team. In the #4 car, Felipe Drugovich has struggled so far this year and also seems to be headed elsewhere for 2022. To replace them, they seem to be going for two fairly inexperienced drivers. Marino Sato, who’s spent 2020 and 2021 mostly at the back with Trident is “well on his way” to joining the team, according to AutoHebdo. It also looks like F3 vice-champion Jack Doohan has made an agreement with the team and will join them for his first F2 year.
Over at ART, with Lundgaard going to IndyCar for next year, he will obviously not be staying with the team for a third year, while his teammate Theo Pourchaire looks like he won’t get an F1 drive and will instead be staying with the French setup for another year. Alongside him, ART’s logical option is Mercedes junior, Frederik Vesti, who came fourth this year in F3 racing for ART, making a promotion to F2 with them more viable. At Carlin, it looks like they’re set for two Red Bull Juniors to join the team. Liam Lawson, who impressed at Hitech in 2021, will almost definitely move, and he will be joined by one of Red Bull’s F3 drivers. The 12th place man from 2021, Ayumu Iwasa looks like he’ll be the one to partner the Kiwi after a bog-standard debut season in F3 after his French F4 championship title.
MP Motorsport are the only team to have already confirmed a driver for 2022. Only hours after AutoHebdo said he’d join the Dutch team, Clement Novolak, third in the 2021 F3 season, was confirmed at the team. Alongside him, we’re likely to see a return to the team for Felipe Drugovich who gathered three wins at the team in 2020. A team that has fallen off in recent years is DAMs and their rumoured 2022 lineup makes that evident. Roy Nissany is set to stay another year and the French team also seem to have entered negotiations with Ralph Boschung who’s been a big surprise at Campos this season.
Across other parts of the grid, Marcus Armstrong is linked with a move to Hitech to potentially partner Juri Vips for ‘22. The Ferrari junior has had two very sub-par seasons at ART and DAMS, and hopes to rejuvenate his chances of F1 with a good season next year. Olli Caldwell impressed at Prema, placing eighth overall and seems welcome on the grid, with Campos the favourites to acquire his signature. Meanwhile Trident also seem to be considering a promotion for David Schumacher (son of Ralf Schumacher), who placed 11th with the team in 2021 in F3.
Of course, the next F2 season will start in March next year so all of this could most definitely change between now and then, but this is the information that we have for now. That’s all then and from me it’s bye for now.