What should Formula 2 be?

The path to Formula 1 is one of motorsport's great sources of debate, and the topic was put in the spotlight by the FIA's list of championships that would be eligible for superlicence points from this year onwards.

That list raised eyebrows, not least because of the non-existent 'Future FIA F2 Championship' that would offer more points than any other.

With the FIA keen to make the route to F1 as linear as possible, and the revival of F2 apparently only a matter of time, the AUTOSPORT team was invited to suggest its thoughts on what the top junior single-seater category should offer.

F2 should be... a REAL F1 junior category
Edd Straw, magazine editor (@EddStrawF1)

Formula 2 cars should be fast. That means a good combination of power and downforce, say something close to the 550bhp mark, with overall laptimes around 107 per cent of an F1 laptime in equal conditions.

GP2 is in this neighbourhood, but there are several other important demands.

While learning tyre management is valuable for F1, in the feeder categories sheer speed should be able to shine through.

As such, the current high-degradation tyres in GP2 are far from ideal. Something more like the Michelins used in Formula Renault 3.5 would do the job.

Some thought should also be put into the drivetrain package. Cost might prohibit this, but an F1-style turbocharged hybrid engine with energy recovery systems would allow drivers to familiarise themselves with the kind of technology they will encounter in F1. This could be a simplified system, with the extra available power used on demand by the driver.

That package should also allow the cars to be seriously quick, and for drivers to think a little about how best to use the available energy during the races. It would also create variations in pace, and therefore encourage overtaking, without DRS.

Race format is absolutely critical. Double-headers are perfectly acceptable, but reversed-grid systems are not. Fine, if you want to have a complete reversal of the grid with all the fastest at the back and the slowest at the front, that is valid; but having the top eight finishers in the first race reversed for the second is a format that does not reward the best drivers enough.

Crucially, provided the F2 concept is as it should be, the champion should be guaranteed a seat in F1 the following year without having to bring money. How to make that work is another question entirely...

F2 should be... careful of F1's shadow
Glenn Freeman, autosport.com editor (@glenn_autosport)

Almost every year when the racing season starts, most of us look at the GP2 and Formula Renault 3.5 grids and wish that the top half of each could battle it out between themselves. So in an ideal world, the new Formula 2 would provide that platform.

The problem is that if teams and suppliers knew that F2 was the only show in town at that level, they would automatically try to charge more. It would be a miracle if the FIA could find a way to keep budgets under control, especially if there's not a cheaper alternative providing some competition.

Racing on the F1 support bill adds some prestige, but teams and drivers pay the price literally (travel and hotel costs go up) and in other ways, such as being stuck at the start or the end of the day to fit in around the F1 timetable, and being shunted to far-flung corners of the paddock.

If a driver is lucky enough to have found some sponsorship, sitting in an awning out of sight of the F1 paddock probably isn't what his investors had in mind when they signed up.

A few F1 supports would make sense, as they could become 'crown jewel' races in the F2 season. And that doesn't mean the F2 schedule can't still be loaded up with F1 tracks.

Perhaps the hardest part of forming the perfect F2 is getting a grid stuffed full of enough competitive teams to satisfy the potential influx of topline drivers.

If the frontrunners from the 2014 FR3.5 field were slotted into the GP2 grid, would there have been enough competitive seats to go around last year?

Someone has to finish last, and those are the people that tend to look elsewhere whenever one championship becomes dominant at a certain level on the ladder.

F2 should be... about the driver, not 'the show'
Scott Mitchell, features editor (@scottmitchell89)

At Formula 2 level drivers should not be learning whole skillsets, they should be refining their talent and going wheel-to-wheel against the other best young drivers around.

F2 needs to be a series that puts the emphasis on refining a driver's ability, not teaching them fundamentals. I dislike that, in the current era of GP2, drivers can learn the formula and succeed through experience in the category alone. It should have a three-year limit, maybe even two, with 60 per cent participation the definition of 'a season'.

F2 should be about potential grand prix drivers fighting over the right to graduate, with a stable tyre and enough power and grip for frontrunners to be touching 107 per cent of an F1 laptime and a format that steers away from reversed-grid shenanigans and focuses on developing a driver's race strategy.

Two 40-minute practice sessions instead of one big one and a 20-minute qualifying session to set the grid for Saturday and another on Sunday. The races should be 50 minutes in length and include one mandatory pitstop.

All of that also counters the dreaded belief that it should be a source of entertainment, when it's a proving ground. What F2 should not do is become something 'to improve the show'.

It should also have a positive, tangible impact on a driver's future. This is going to be an FIA-pushed category so enforcing a route into F1, without the need for multi-million pound backing, has to be a top priority.

How this would work is difficult, but would giving the constructors' champion the opportunity to run a third car (not eligible for points) be so crazy?

F2 should be... Formula 3
Marcus Simmons, magazine deputy editor (@MarcusSimmons54)

I'm going to throw a little curveball into this argument - I wonder whether, if the power of Formula 3 cars was upped a little bit, we even need an intermediate category below Formula 1.

Drivers graduating straight from F3 and GP3 level to F1 seem to be at no discernible disadvantage to those coming from GP2 and Formula Renault 3.5, so do we really need another variation on this theme?

Instead, widen the air restrictors by a few millimetres on the F3 cars, call them F2, and then all the new FIA-certified Formula 4 categories could become the new F3.

Such a move would even get rid of the UK confusion between FIA F4 (in the form of MSA Formula) and BRDC F4...

It's a radical step and I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons why it couldn't happen, but the whole idea of debate is to bring in ideas that might initially seem a bit 'out there'.

We'd probably also see the end of the new fashion of drivers making a Verstappen-style leap from karting to F3 (as in F2 trim the cars would surely be too powerful).

And, as long as there was a rethink on logistics and planning, what would effectively be a merger of three grids could see some epic competition between drivers aged from 16 to 25. Let's have heats and a final!

F2 should be... multi-make and F1 influenced
Matt Beer, autosport.com deputy editor (@mattofautosport)

The final step to Formula 1 needs to share enough elements with the top level to both ensure grand prix teams take it seriously as a shopping ground, and so it catches a little of the glow from F1's spotlight.

To come across as second-tier F1, it needs to recognisably share its big brother's DNA. That's hard to achieve without also provoking F1-level costs (and one F1 is already unaffordable enough), but if hybrid technology and the like is integral to the top level, then its feeder series must at least gesture towards it - perhaps in standardised form. And it's never been ideal for drivers to not encounter multi-make racing between karts and F1 at all.

A multi-chassis, hybrid formula hardly sounds like logical for what would still be a 'junior' championship, but equally if you were designing the route to F1 from the top down now, a one-make 100-per-cent-internal-combustion, normally-aspirated format surely wouldn't be your ideal final stepping stone.

A good feeder series should also be a ladder for teams as well as drivers, and it's been painful to watch high-quality junior squads turn into a laughing stock if they dare to enter F1.

Is an F2 for the previous year's F1 cars in restricted form (but with some areas of development permitted), run by a mix of the grand prix teams themselves and the best teams on the cusp of F1 level too utopian and a ridiculously expensive idea? Probably. Especially when the top end of the sport is unwilling to invest in keeping its own grid full, let alone financially assisting its second tier, which is the only way such a proposal could really be viable.

And that's why any revamping of the young driver ladder can only really succeed when the destination at the top is genuinely accessible and sustainable for the very best emerging racers and teams.

F2 should be... like it was before
Ben Anderson, assistant F1 editor (@BenAndersonAuto)

Let's presume we live in motorsport utopia - where the world of Formula 1 isn't an economic basket case. In that world, FIA Formula 2 makes sense.

What's more, it makes most sense existing in a similar guise to its previous form - the single-make, centrally-run series that ran from 2009 until '12.

That category was ahead of its time, designed for a motorsport nirvana that doesn't exist yet, where F1 teams are all meritocratic sporting entities that select drivers purely on ability, according to their own competitive standing.

In this world, aspiring professional single-seater drivers have learned everything they need to know at F4 and F3 level; F2 is about sorting the absolute wheat from the slightly less absolute wheat.

Here, the junior pilots would pit their wits against one another with no discernible technical advantage over one another, allowing F1 teams (which all have paid race and test drives available, remember) to see who really is the cream of the current crop before (potentially) employing them.

OK, the car would probably need to be more advanced than the Williams design used previously (much closer to current GP2 or Formula Renault 3.5), but the basis of the right championship is there.

The problem first time around was rooted in the FIA introducing a series just below F1 that priced itself below F3 - to roughly European Formula Renault level. It became a last-chance saloon, instead of the proper route to future stardom.

If Max Mosley's budget-capped F1 had come to pass, FIA F2 would have made some sense. F2 could make sense again, but only if F1 gets its house in order first. After all, what use are superlicence points if you can't spend them?

F2 should be... wary of existing series
Peter Mills, picture editor (@Peter_Autosport)

Is the idea of Formula 2 to declutter the single-seater ladder and form one outstandingly vibrant championship to supersede the existing Formula Renault 3.5 and GP2 Series?

Is it to reduce the outlay required by drivers with Formula 1 ambitions? Or, dare we say it, has someone at the FIA contemplated potential entry fees?

If simplifying the confusing single-seater landscape is a priority, it would seem counterproductive to launch a third championship pitched at a similar level to GP2 and FR3.5 and just hope the established series fade away.

A merger between GP2 and FR3.5 is potentially a solution, if it could be made to happen.

However, what incentives are there for GP2 promoter Bruno Michel to go into partnership with Renault Sport, or vice versa? It's difficult to think of any, other than the philanthropic 'good of the sport'.

The original FR3.5 car was often described as Formula 3 on steroids. Many believe the latest car, with its Zytek engine and DRS, was conceived as something of a blatant alternative to GP2.

Given the narrowing in performance difference, the FIA could lobby that both series adopt the same set of technical regulations when GP2 and FR3.5's existing machinery comes to the end of its life-cycle and is due to be replaced.

If an agreement can't be reached for a single championship, and vested interests are apparent, the FIA could adopt either FR3.5 or GP2 as a favoured series and hand it the FIA F2 moniker, leaving the remaining series to continue autonomously. Why force the issue and create something else if two viable options already exist?