The underrated driver who could 'Albon' his way to F1

The fastest driver in the 2019 Formula 2 season so far isn't part of a Formula 1 junior programme.

He's the son of an Italian factory owner turned clubman racer, and is shorter on cash than most at F2 level. But, nine years after he started his car racing career, Luca Ghiotto is still on the cusp of the pinnacle of motorsport.

The 2019 season sums up Ghiotto's career to date. Searing pace, ill-fortune and mistakes that have been amplified by bad luck. It's been a rollercoaster ride. Ghiotto drives for the team with the best package on the grid this year, Virtuosi Racing, with a rookie team-mate. And yet he lies third in the points and some way off likely Williams 2020 F1 driver Nicholas Latifi - that's if Racing Point don't dive in for him too.

Ghiotto's lack of budget has always been a problem. It's not a new story in motorsport and of course, there are greater atrocities going on in the world, so a racing driver needing a few million or hundred thousand isn't top of a list of things worth losing sleep over. But there's no doubt that had Ghiotto's talent been matched with a budget, he'd be much further up the pecking order when it comes to progression to F1.

The main problem is that his career has never had momentum. The likes of Lando Norris and George Russell, who have recently made F1 seemed to have plenty of momentum, plus a lot of financial and/or manufacturer backing. Two things Ghiotto lacks.

After he showed flashes of pace in various Formula Renault 2.0 series in Europe in 2011-13, things looked promising for Ghiotto, especially as he raced with junior single-seater powerhouse Prema Racing. But an ill-fated year in 2014 with International Draco Racing - with most of the season spent racing with a broken chassis - was a near-career ender. He didn't find out about the chassis issue until the end of the year.

Luckily, his first real chance to shine also came that year, as Trident Racing gambled and put Ghiotto in for a one-off GP3 race at Spa (which eventually became a two-event deal that included the following round at Monza) where he took pole and announced himself onto the scene in style.

The 2015 season is the year he is best known for. Ghiotto took on Esteban Ocon, who went on to become a proven F1 driver, in GP3, won five races to Ocon's one and narrowly missed out on the title due to his rival's strong run of podium finishes.

"If I take Esteban as a reference and why he has been able to make it to F1, I think he was already a Mercedes junior driver, and that helped him a lot," says Ghiotto. "I never really had a chance to be part of any driver programmes with any team, [or have] a close relationship with an F1 team. I had a test with Williams [an F1 test in 2017] but it was just one day and that was it, it wasn't something meant to be part of the team for a longer period."

Ghiotto's answer to the question, 'Does beating Ocon so many times that year prove you're good enough to make it to F1?' sums him up perfectly, and typifies why so many people like him in the F2 paddock. He's refreshingly and brutally honest, humble, realistic and optimistic all at the same time.

By taking a pole immediately, it legitimised Ghiotto's chance with one of the top F2 teams

"You will have to ask to someone else because I don't really like to say, 'I'm good enough to race in F1'," he says. "I'm not the kind of person who feels like a hero. I play things down, that's my mentality. That was a good year [2015], let's say that for my mental state that was a good thing. When you've fought with a driver who has done so well in F1, you feel good, you say, 'If I can fight with him I'm capable of doing something'."

Confidence has always been a bit of an issue for Ghiotto; knowing your career can end the very next race weekend can do that to a driver. But this year it's something he's really worked on - he's learned to believe in himself more.

After that 2015 season, Ghiotto had the chance to jump into GP2 with Trident, but the Italian squad has never really been as good in GP2/F2 as it was in GP3. In 2017, he made the switch to Russian Time, run by many personnel from the Super Nova operation that had run top drivers in various championships for decades, with staff including Andy Roche (effectively the team boss) and Paul Devlin being some of the best in the business.

Ghiotto took fourth in the championship and it was a strong year.

"We made a good bond in 2017," says Ghiotto's '19 race engineer Geoff Spear. "We could have scored more points in 2017 for different reasons, some on the team's side and some on Luca's side. I think we've both turned a corner since then."

Sadly, that corner was a hairpin for Ghiotto, as a switch to Campos and the new F2 car for 2018 proved to be an ill-fated move. The team struggled and so did Ghiotto, who ended up eighth in the standings.

At 24 years old, Ghiotto needed something new to rediscover his form from that special 2015 season. And in this case, it came in the form of something old.

A return to Spear, Roche, Devlin and team director Declan Lohan, Ghiotto's deal to race with Virtuosi Racing this season has been like a return to home. But there is something new - the team's name, as the same people who ran Russian Time rebranded for 2019.

The season started with a pole position in Bahrain, and it looked like it might be the glory year Ghiotto has deserved.

"Straight away when I jumped to the Virtuosi car, it felt like another car, like, 'Wow, this is completely different'," he explains.

"I'm not saying the Campos car is shit, but there's so much difference between them, it didn't even feel like the same car. Probably the way I'm feeling that I'm driving, it feels much better with the Virtuosi car. It's not a secret, if you look at F2 it's always the same four teams fighting for wins and poles. If you want to win the championship you have to be with one of these teams."

By taking a pole immediately, it legitimised Ghiotto's chance with one of those teams. Virtuosi had wanted him back after the year they enjoyed together in 2017, and the team's rookie driver Guan Yu Zhou was happy to have a team-mate with experience to learn from as part of his two-year programme to reach F1. It was a win-win.

But after that, the early season didn't go to plan. A clutch problem emerged on the formation lap in the Bahrain feature race, and it meant Ghiotto and Spear had only a couple of minutes to rectify the issue, which threatened to turn their pole into no reward. Despite the fix, Ghiotto still fell to sixth off the line.

"When you have a problem like I had at the start, it was important for us to find a solution just to start [the race], because when the problem came up we couldn't engage first gear," he recalls.

Sadly, most of the rest of the 2019 season so far has reflected Ghiotto's career to date in many ways

"At first it looked like we wouldn't start the race and we'd have to retire before it. At least we were able to get to the grid and start. I think we did a really good job to stay calm and find the problem while we were on the grid. They were really good to keep me calm, because they were on the radio saying, 'Relax, we are making it work'. We did a good job not only on the car set-up, but also on solving the problems and everything else that happened during the weekend."

That attitude indicates what Ghiotto is like to work with, and is confirmed by Spear. He always credits those around him for his small wins, but in fact his calm and methodical way of going about things has a soothing effect that galvanizes the team. As only 12 people are allowed to work on each car in F2, that's a must.

"There's many other drivers who would have fallen far further back down the order than he did in that situation," says Spear. "The start was good given the circumstances and then to have the calmness to come back and get on with the job was really impressive.

"I'm only getting his feedback because we don't get telemetry. All I know about what's going on is about what he tells me. He's clear and concise with what he feels, which helps me to diagnose and fix a problem. He has good feel, too.

"He's a great guy, very honest. If there's something he feels is wrong with the car or something we're doing, he'll tell me. But in the same respect, if it's his fault and he feels like he's done something wrong, with his driving or whatever, he just says [so] and he's honest, which is something we really appreciate. You need a trust between driver and team. I feel like we have that because we're honest.

"He has passion about what he does too - he's Italian and he has that passion - which is good, we like passion. He's not a robot.

"He knows how to temper that as well. He knows if something fires him up, how to calm down and get on with the race. He does a good job of that. Overall, he has pace and a very rounded approach - and with feedback and development [too]. He's been great to work with and that's why I was so happy to work with him again this year."

Ghiotto fought back to second in that opening race, but then won the sprint race the next day from seventh on the grid.

Sadly, most of the rest of the 2019 season so far has reflected his career to date in many ways. It's been a year he has described as "like a comedy film".

After Bahrain came Baku where a concertina effect in the pack behind the safety car left Ghiotto with nowhere to go and he crashed into the back of Sergio Sette Camara. A fourth and second at Barcelona was promising. But then in Monaco, a non-performance part in his car's steering column was found to be non-conforming and he was excluded from second place in the first race, and he then caused a crash in the sprint race that resulted in a three-place grid drop for the next round.

A race-one crash ruined his Paul Ricard weekend and then, finally, came some "relief". Two second places at the Red Bull Ring were followed by his first ever F2 feature race win last weekend at Silverstone.

Right now, Ghiotto is 48 points off the F2 championship lead. But there's nothing to stop him going on an incredible run in the second half of the season and pulling back into contention against Latifi and co.

So, is F1 a possibility for his future? That's a tough one. There's not been any rumours linking him with a team, but then the same could be said of 2019 Toro Rosso driver Alex Albon this time last year.

Ghiotto is the fastest driver in F2 2019, and is still not being considered for F1 '20. But that doesn't mean he can't 'Albon' his way to F1

Albon started 2018 with no cash (does this sound familiar?) and impressed with his performances against drivers nailed on to reach F1 before miraculously being picked back up by the Red Bull programme that had dropped him years earlier and installed him in a Toro Rosso seat for '19.

In many ways, Ghiotto is the perfect driver for Red Bull. He's rough around the edges, extremely quick given the chance, and brutally honest when asked to evaluate his performances.

Of course, Ghiotto is 100% realistic about ending up racing in GTs or the DTM next year, and a paid drive in either of those outlets would be a win. But it would be the same for the team that takes him on.

But Albon's example may just give hope that performance alone can still help a driver reach F1.

"The gap to Nyck [de Vries, the current F2 points leader] is very big, so I'm just thinking about every race as a different prize, and try to make the best result possible on each weekend," adds Ghiotto. "Not really thinking about the championship too much. About next year, I always have the hope of finding a place in F1, because that is the number one target on the list.

"I have to be smart, I don't have a rich family and I won't get to F1 without money. I need help from teams. I will still keep working on that. If we work hard and do good results, the fact that F1 has been so crazy with drivers in the last few years, there could still be a chance, which is what I'm hoping for.

"For sure Alex's case is one of those, it let's me have a bit of hope that I can get there. It looks like there is a lot of turnaround on the drivers. I just need to work and do my best and then we'll see what happens."

Ghiotto is the fastest driver in F2 2019, and is still not being considered for an F1 seat next year. But that doesn't mean he can't 'Albon' his way to F1. And he'd be just as competent at the pinnacle of motorsport.