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.