Why a midfield driver in F2 can still be a frontrunner in F1
General
- Ludo van Denderen
It seems straightforwards: The drivers competing at the front in Formula 2 should be the best choices for F1 teams. But that is not that black and white these days. Franco Colapinto, Oliver Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli did not compete for the F2 title at all, but they could all graduate to F1. Bruno Michel, the CEO of Formula 2, understands that for F1 teams, it is sometimes difficult to read the qualities of drivers in the feeder series. He explains why they then trust certain drivers no matter their actual results on track.
Take Jack Doohan. The Australian finished third in the F2 championship in '23, but where champion Théo Pourchaire did not get promoted to F1, he did. "Jack had a full season with Alpine to work on the simulator. He was there all the season, in the garage, with the headsets to discuss with the engineers, to understand," Michel explains.
"That's also part of the training that they need to have. It's not just the result on the track that they're looking at, and I think that's why you cannot always see the first three drivers are directly going to Formula One and the others. It really depends on the way they're working. If you look also at Kimi Antonelli, it's the same. He's been working with Mercedes very, very heavily over the last years, and this year as well, to be sure that when he was getting to F1, he would understand what's happening."
Formula 1 not comparable to Formula 2
The CEO says it is important for the outside world to understand that an F2 team is not at all comparable to Formula 1. "You have only 12 operating people, which means the drivers know everybody. You enter the garage, you know what everybody's doing. You're entering to a Formula One garage, you've got 60 people, and they all have very, very specific roles."
"For a young driver, understanding what everybody is doing already is a massive advantage, because otherwise you arrive and you're completely lost. I think that's also part of the preparation that they have that we cannot provide them, but the F1 teams are providing them as well," Michel concluded.
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