The quintet giving Ferrari a tough decision to make

More than a few eyebrows were raised when it became apparent that the Ferrari Driver Academy was to be represented by no fewer than five of its young hopefuls in this season's FIA Formula 2 Championship. But what else could happen? It was just a natural convergence in the quintet's respective careers.

Mick Schumacher and Callum Ilott had gone through promising-at-times rookie seasons in F2 in 2019, neither of them anywhere near being ready for promotion to Formula 1. Giuliano Alesi had shown respectably enough in his own rookie F2 campaign to suggest he deserved another shot. And as champion and runner-up respectively in the FIA Formula 3 Championship of 2019, Robert Shwartzman and Marcus Armstrong were clearly ready to move up.

That means that Ferrari is enjoying its own championship within a championship this year - the fight between its five to prove who's most ready to land a seat at the pinnacle of the sport.

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Unquestionably that will not be with Ferrari itself, with that team committed to Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr and ever-reluctant to take in unproven talent. But with Ferrari customers in the forms of Haas and Alfa Romeo, which runs the FDA's 2016 GP2 runner-up Antonio Giovinazzi, there is clearly scope to step up.

The question is, who will emerge at the front of the queue? Ilott won at the opening round of the 2020 season at the Red Bull Ring last weekend, but Schumacher, Armstrong and Shwartzman were all frontrunners.

What are the underlying trends? We spoke to Prema Racing principal Rene Rosin, whose team currently runs Schumacher and Shwartzman and has fielded Ilott and Armstrong in the past. Rosin didn't want to talk about Alesi because he doesn't know him, but he's the rank outsider anyway.

The hard worker: Mick Schumacher

Record:
2019: 12th in F2 (Prema)
2018: 1st in European F3 (Prema)
2017: 12th in European F3 (Prema)
2016: 2nd in German and Italian F4 (Prema)
2015: 10th in German F4 (Van Amersfoort)

The son of seven-time F1 world champion Michael Schumacher has every opportunity to make it to F1 just because of his name, but he's a quick customer who perhaps takes a little longer than some others to gain the confidence to lay everything on the line and win races from the start - witness his two-year progress throughout every category he's raced in to date. That was certainly the case in F2 last year, although there were some moments of bad luck that cost him some decent results.

"Honestly, Mick last year had some good moments, but he wasn't able to show his potential," says Rosin. "I've always been convinced of his potential - this is his fifth year racing with me! I know how much work he can do and I'm sure he can deliver."

"He's very methodical, and he has a focus on every single aspect. We have these changes in the technical regulations for 2020, with the new tyres and aero and so on, and he's very good at understanding that" Rene Rosin

Schumacher has a reputation for quietly getting on with the task of improving himself. He's never one to shout about things, and that has served him well.

"He's very methodical, and he has a focus on every single aspect," says Rosin. "We have these changes in the technical regulations for 2020, with the new tyres and aero and so on, and he's very good at understanding that."

Furthermore, it should be remembered that Schumacher spent his rookie F2 season in 2019 alongside Sean Gelael, a driver who's been around for ages in the midfield. Now, in 2020, he has a good barometer alongside Shwartzman, who he was teamed with in F3 in 2018.

He was generally quicker than Shwartzman at the Red Bull Ring, and should have got a podium but for a silly mistake when he went into the gravel. It's a good match, and one where Schumacher augments the atmosphere with his attitude - like his dad, he has commendable blue-collar attitudes to the job.

"Absolutely, if he has a free moment he helps the mechanics," enthuses Rosin. "He's trying always to create a good environment."

The calculating one: Robert Shwartzman

Record:
2019: 1st in FIA F3 (Prema)
2018: 3rd in European F3 (Prema); 1st in Toyota Racing Series (M2)
2017: 3rd in FRenault Eurocup (R-ace)
2016: 8th in FRenault Eurocup/6th in FRenault NEC (Kaufmann)
2015: 3rd in Italian F4/4th in German F4 (Mucke)

As well as being a Ferrari junior, Shwartzman is backed by the Russian SMP Racing programme, although he went straight into mainstream European racing rather than compete against the horde of other SMP proteges in Northern European F4. He looked good straight away, but only in flashes, and had a reputation for being a little bit erratic.

Over the past couple of years, however, he's become a master of stealthily winning championships without looking the most spectacular - he beat Armstrong to the TRS crown in New Zealand in 2018, he won the European F3 rookie title the same year over Armstrong and Juri Vips, and then beat Armstrong (yet again) and Jehan Daruvala in FIA F3 last season.

"He's doesn't have a spectacular driving style," agrees Rosin, "but look what he did last year. And from the moment he understood F3 in 2018 [the older version of the category] nobody could stop him.

"Honestly, he has natural instinct. He knows what he has to do and he's getting more technical the more time passes. He knows how to manage the tyres, how to deal with everything."

Shwartzman made a highly impressive F2 debut last weekend. He was beaten to second by Armstrong in the opening race, but arguably wouldn't have been had he not lost 3.5 seconds in the pits due to difficulty getting a wheel off. He showed composure in not trying a risky move to demote Armstrong, and then backed that up with a solid fourth in race two.

"In previous years I would say he would risk a bit more, but last weekend he was bringing home the results," points out Rosin. That's fair enough, but at this level he might soon need to combine assertiveness with judgement to win races.

Even so, it should be remembered that Shwartzman went through tragedy in April when his father, florist Mikhail, succumbed to COVID-19 at the age of 52. For a 20-year-old to race so strongly just three months later shows real strength of character.

The massive natural talent: Callum Ilott

Record:
2019: 11th in F2 (Charouz)
2018: 3rd in GP3 (ART)
2017: 4th in European F3 (Prema)
2016: 6th in European F3 (Van Amersfoort)
2015: 12th in European F3 (Carlin)

There's a delicious flamboyance and car control about the Englishman's driving that, when things are going well, means he can be nearly unbeatable, but doesn't always translate perfectly into every situation.

Off-track, he's a laid-back (albeit sensitive) lad who likes to say what he thinks, although this has led to a self-censorship since he joined the Ferrari scheme as he got his fingers burnt by some remarks being taken out of context in certain quarters of the media. At such a critical stage of his career this is understandable, but once he becomes a top professional - wherever that is - stand by for a highly engaging star of the sport.

"Sometimes he has his ups and downs, but when the team follows him and understands him he can extract a lot. He has the potential. I love him!" Rene Rosin

Can he make it to F1? As with all these guys, it's debatable. He had some bad luck in GP3, but arguably should have got closer to the title. A rookie F2 season with Charouz was inconclusive. He won the 2020 F2 opener last weekend in his first race with Virtuosi, but team-mate Guanyu Zhou - who wasn't a match for him in their F3 days - took a comfortable pole and was leading before gearbox problems.

"When he's quick he's unbelievable," enthuses Rosin, who ran Ilott in the F3 European Championship in 2017. "Sometimes he has his ups and downs, but when the team follows him and understands him he can extract a lot. He has the potential. I love him - he's an amazing guy!"

The task is for Ilott to eliminate those downs.

"He needs to show now the consistency," continues Rosin. "Even with us, in some races he was incredibly fast and in other races it just didn't happen for him."

The dark horse: Marcus Armstrong

Record:
2019: 2nd in FIA F3 (Prema); 2nd in Toyota Racing Series (M2)
2018: 5th in European F3 (Prema); 3rd in TRS (M2)
2017: 1st in Italian F4/2nd in German F4 (Prema); 4th in TRS (M2)

At age 13, he was already racing saloons in New Zealand and then an old Kent-engined Formula Ford, apparently on the road to becoming an I'm-Going-To-Be-In-Australian-Supercars-Forever star of the southern hemisphere. Such is his laconic, laid-back wit at age 19, you'd imagine him to be well in his comfort zone should that have happened.

Then TonyKart came calling, dragging Armstrong to Europe. And then Ferrari, dragging him to F4 when he'd had his heart set in Formula Renault. But hey, it's got him to where he is now. And 'where he is now' should have been the lead of the F2 points after his debut weekend at the Red Bull Ring.

Had his car not ground to a halt while third in the sprint race, the points he'd have earned for that allied to his second place - from 13th on the grid, after nursing his tyres on a super-long stint - in the feature race would put him one ahead of Ilott. That's something of a theme for Armstrong, for whom this season represents his first step away from Prema since 2017, forming a strong all-rookie combo at ART Grand Prix with Renault F1 Junior Christian Lundgaard.

For some time in 2018, it looked as though it would be Armstrong - not Schumacher - who would be Prema's challenger for the European F3 title (he finished fifth in the end), and he could have beaten Shwartzman in FIA F3 in 2019 without a couple of moments of bad luck. And as for his TRS blows in his native New Zealand, well... the legendarily unlucky Chris Amon will be looking down ruefully at his young countryman. Many of those reverses have come at the hands of Shwartzman.

"They respect each other," points out Rosin. "Marcus is another very talented driver. He adapts very quickly and every car he drives without any problem. He's a hard worker as well."

It's a baffling one. Everything seems to be there, but it never quite seems to happen. By the law of averages, you wouldn't want to bet against it this year, especially as Armstrong is arguably - just - the lead driver at an ART team that has fielded each of the two champions (George Russell and Nyck de Vries) since the current F2 car was introduced.

The rank outsider: Giuliano Alesi

Record:
2019: 15th in F2 (Trident)
2018: 7th in GP3 (Trident)
2017: 5th in GP3 (Trident)
2016: 22nd in GP3 (Trident)
2015: 4th in French F4

The son of Ferrari hero Jean Alesi is a perfectly capable racing driver, but few are looking to him to upset any applecarts in his second season of F2, his first with HWA Racelab, which has replaced the old Arden team in the category.

He showed flashes of speed at the Red Bull Ring, albeit with the red herring that he was on soft tyres in the feature race after a late safety car when everyone else was on hard rubber. That sixth place put him in the mix at the start of the sprint race, before his engine caught fire.

He'll score plenty of points, but unlike the other four he's an extremely long shot for the title. In common with around half a dozen other drivers operating in the F2 midfield, Alesi is good enough for a decent career in the sport as a professional, but you wouldn't count on it being in F1.

But which of them will make it?

Out of Schumacher, Shwartzman, Ilott and Armstrong it's impossible to make a call now as to which would be most deserving of a place in F1. They are all very talented, but it's fair to say that none of them are as clear-cut, obviously bound for F1 as Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc (their predecessor on the FDA), Lando Norris or George Russell were.

When Leclerc was on his majestic path to the 2017 F2 title with Prema, Rosin said to Autosport: "I think that they have to put him in the [F1] car, otherwise what's the sense of the junior formulas? What's the sense of Formula 1 either if we are not able to promote the best drivers to the field? If these drivers are not able to get into Formula 1, what is the sense in having Formula 2, Formula 3 and Formula 4 - these kids are all dreaming of F1, and if they're not able to do that there's no sense in it."

Giovinazzi was a thoroughly impressive runner-up as a GP2 rookie in 2016 with Prema, and none of the quintet have yet proved they could do a better job than him

By contrast, you don't yet get the sense that any of these guys should get to F1, otherwise there will be a burning injustice. But it's also likely that, should the door open for Schumacher, Shwartzman, Ilott or Armstrong - and let's face it, it'll most likely be for Schumacher - each of them would do a decent enough job.

Don't forget, we're probably talking about Giovinazzi being the man on the bubble. He was a thoroughly impressive runner-up as a GP2 rookie in 2016 with Prema, and he's rebuilding the ground he lost with two years on the verge of F1 before Alfa Romeo gave him the seat for 2019. None of the quintet have yet proved they could do a better job than Giovinazzi.

A hybrid of Schumacher, Shwartzman, Ilott and Armstrong would be an extraordinary prospect, but unfortunately they exist in four different forms, blocking up Ferrari's staircase of talent! It's going to take a big step forward from all of them - and bigger still from Shwartzman, Ilott and Armstrong - in F2 this year. It really is neck and neck.