The brightest lights in F2's departing six-year warhorse
It might not have as many people pining for it as does the March 782, but the Dallara F2 2018 car launched a host of special talents. Time to assess the best
When Amaury Cordeel crossed the finish line to take 16th place in the Formula 2 finale at Yas Marina last month, the Belgian became the last driver to take a race chequered flag in a car that had given six years of service. Following the subsequent week’s three-day post-season test, the Dallara F2 2018 was banished to obsolescence after 70 weekends of competition featuring 147 races.
While the teams waited to take delivery of the new-for-2024 cars, we thought it might be fun to rate the leading drivers from the 2018-23 era, and call their teams for comments about them…
12. Jack Doohan
6th in 2022, 3rd in 2023
Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Doohan won the final feature race of the Dallara F2 2018 era in Abu Dhabi
Only three drivers scored more than the Australian’s tally of four feature race wins in 2018-23; only two exceeded his total of five pole positions.
Virtuosi boss Andy Roche: “He’s a very, very quick guy. On his day he’s unbeatable. He showed what he’s capable of in Abu Dhabi [where he won the finale] when everything is right, and I think he’ll go a long way. He’s very demanding, but knows what he wants and pushes for it all the time. There were some quick boys this year. The turning point for us was the test in Barcelona [in May this year]. We worked hard to get to the bottom of everything.”
Should Doohan have stayed in F2 for a third season in 2024?
“A third year is tough – if you don’t win it you’re finished, and if you do you should have done anyway. Jack has made the right move not to carry on. He’s proved enough in his two years.”
11. Mick Schumacher
12th in 2019, 1st in 2020
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Despite never qualifying on the front row Schumacher delivered in 2020 to claim the title
Made a big step forward from his rookie campaign to win the 2020 title, but bizarrely did so without ever qualifying on the front row.
Prema chief Rene Rosin: “He put everything in the right place. Maybe not the best qualifier, but then some drivers are very good in races and some not so good in quali. But he won in Sochi, he won in Monza, and scored the points to win the championship.
“The first year with the 18-inch tyres was 2020. To be honest, there was a bit of things to understand, but even if he was not performing he was always there, and usually very good in the first two laps of the race, maximising the potential. The first lap in Monza was incredible – the start and so on. People were thinking that we had launch control or traction control, but it was not true, [his start] was absolutely great. He was always very aggressive to send it but at the same time, without taking too much from the car.”
What about the Sochi DRS controversy?
“It was just a difference on a part number. it already happened before with Charouz, so that’s why the FIA was consistent with the decision.”
10. Theo Pourchaire
5th in 2021, 2nd in 2022, 1st in 2023
Photo by: Alfa Romeo
Pourchaire claimed the 2023 F2 crown after narrowly seeing off Fredrik Vesti
Matches Felipe Drugovich and Nyck de Vries for most feature-race victories during this period, with five.
ART team principal Sebastien Philippe: “When Theo arrived in our team for his F3 season he was just 16 years old, with not a big experience of motorsport because he was coming from Formula 4. It was the year of COVID, where we did a season in two months! And in two months you don’t have time to think about what you are doing.
“So with his talent, he was able to perform very well, but I must say with not a lot of maturity due to his young age and his lack of experience. So I do think that for sure Theo is a very good driver, but in his career, he had been moving up far too quickly. When he arrived in F2 he was by experience only an F4 driver and a two-month F3 driver, and he hadn’t faced a lot of situations in his life, so when everything was going well he was fantastic like in Monaco [where he brilliantly won the feature race from pole as a rookie, aged 17].
“Today he has done three years of F2, he’s still only 20 years old, he has been facing difficult moments these last two years, but it put him a bit on the back foot at times – he was conservative because he was afraid of losing the championship.”
PLUS: Ranking the top 10 drivers on F1's undercard in 2023
9. Callum Ilott
11th in 2019, 2nd in 2020
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Ilott claimed pole for five of the 12 rounds in 2020 but missed out on the title to Schumacher
After a rookie season with Charouz, he flourished with Virtuosi. His record of six poles is topped only by de Vries.
Roche: “It was a good year all round with both drivers [Ilott and Zhou Guanyu, who’s unlucky to miss this list]. Callum was an extreme talent, and very quick over one lap, no question. A little bit unfortunate not winning the championship to be fair.
“With the new 18-inch tyres, we were ready to go before the lockdown. During lockdown, we just did everything we could and it paid off. We certainly seemed to have an advantage at the start of the year. Both drivers were good development guys, they know what they’re doing, and that made a big difference for us, that’s for sure.
“Maybe at the first couple of races, he wasn’t quite as sharp as Zhou [on looking after the tyres in races], but he soon caught up and to be honest it was only really the last race of the year, when it was obvious Mick was going to win [the title] and Callum couldn’t do anything about it, that we were saying, ‘You look after your tyres’ and he was, ‘No, forget that – this is a race now!’ Great lad, really good family. The two guys got on great – they still message each other all the time from what I’m told.”
8. Nyck de Vries
4th in 2018, 1st in 2019
Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
De Vries won the title at the third attempt for ART in 2019, seeing off Nicholas Latifi
Already had a season in F2 under his belt with the old car, plus a year in Formula Renault 3.5. His seven poles are a record for the 2018-23 machine. Moved from Prema to ART to win title in 2019.
Philippe: “During the season with Nyck, the two very strong points with him were: the performance on one lap, because he did quite a lot of poles; and he was a very good starter in the races. After, it’s true that two times we were struggling on race pace and at the end of the race, but it was still a strong season with him, and Nyck now is a friend. He’s a very smart guy, and I think his very positive point is that he’s very, very clever and he knows how to optimise things.”
Were his tyre struggles a legacy of an early career on the Renault categories’ durable Michelins?
“Yeah, there is that. For sure there is some habit on his driving style that he used to have in the years before, and when you have a style of driving probably it’s difficult to drive against it. For sure the way Nyck was driving to manage the tyres was probably a bit more difficult.”
7. Robert Shwartzman
4th in 2020, 2nd in 2021
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Shwartzman came up against stiff competition from Piastri at Prema in 2021
Stayed on edge of title chase as a rookie to the finale. Remained at Prema for 2021, but unlucky enough to go up against Oscar Piastri…
Rosin: “The first part of the season he was fighting for the championship, fighting for the wins. He won feature races at Red Bull Ring, Hungaroring, and he was absolutely there. I still consider Robert to be Formula 1 material, still now. To be honest he’s not always the luckiest.
“It was very difficult for him in 2020 when he lost his father – he was his light, his mentor. He managed that quite well. Other people would say, ‘No, I stop doing everything’. For me, he missed F1 for various conditions out of his control. In 2021, it was honestly the best line-up we had. They worked very well together. He found somebody [Piastri] with his talent but Oscar was also like a machine.”
6. Yuki Tsunoda
3rd in 2020
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Tsunoda only spent a single year in F2 but made a strong impression with Carlin on his way to F1
The Japanese driver’s sensational rise to prominence in the COVID-hit 2020 season with Carlin carried him to F1.
Team chief Trevor Carlin: “I knew he was going to be fast because I’d seen him in F3 with Jenzer, and he was super-competitive in a lower-ranked car, and he really tried and he was fighting all the time. So when Helmut [Marko of Red Bull] said that he had a driver and that it’s Yuki, I just put my hand out and said, ‘Done, I want him’. And he didn’t let us down.
“In the car on a quali lap, it was like Taku [the team’s much-loved 2001 British F3 champion Sato] – just flat-out. If you look at the beginning of his season, if he hadn’t taken a few front wings and things off, and we hadn’t a driveshaft failure at Red Bull Ring, he would have won the championship. And if Schumacher had been disqualified [at Sochi for the DRS crank issue], Yuki would have won the championship.
“Yuki’s English wasn’t great but it was good enough, and he was already swearing before he got to us – we can’t take credit for that!”
5. Alexander Albon
3rd in 2018
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Albon earned praise from his DAMS team as he took the fight to Russell and Norris in 2018
Already had an F2 season under his belt in 2017 before moving to DAMS for his final shot at the category.
DAMS technical boss Remi Decorzent: “We always at DAMS try to choose one quick driver, even sometimes without big funding. At the time Alex had only one sponsor that came from Asia, and it never came… So we were funding by ourselves.
“The first test in Abu Dhabi he made the best time with a scrubbed set, and we thought ‘this man is special’. He’s like a cat, even with a car not balanced. Alex brought a lot of new things to us because we were coming from a season where with the old car we fell a bit against Prema. We had to come back a bit to find a new direction with the new car. And actually, we made quite a lot of poles in a row [three].
“He understood quite well the tyre – when it was coming, where are the limitations of the car with the brake balance – so this helped us to prepare well. Now we teach the drivers a lot, but he learnt by himself, by feeling – he was able to put energy on the front tyres when you need, to save the rear tyres when you need. He’s a nice guy, a hard worker, stays very calm, well-educated, and very clever. He’s a fantastic driver.”
4. Lando Norris
2nd in 2018
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Norris won the first race of the new era in the 2018 Bahrain feature
As reigning European F3 champion with Carlin, his loyalty to the team brought it back to F2 after a year out. Took pole and won at the Bahrain opener, before Russell came to the fore.
Carlin: “It was because I’d set up a test team, and Mark Berryman [from Norris’s management] saw what a great job [engineers] Stefan [de Groot] and Matt [Ogle] did, and they said we’ll go with you. We hurriedly put in an entry in and got it, thank God, and the rest is history. 2018 wasn’t a particularly brilliant FIA F3 year for us, and if we hadn’t pulled that F2 thing off I think the business probably would have folded.
“It was the first year of this turbo engine, and there were lots of reliability issues with them, and there was also a lot of inequality with them. Certainly, Lando was on the lower end of the performance window. We’d known Lando since 2014, so we saw him develop from a boy to a man effectively. He’s always been a wonderful lad and always had a great sense of humour because he’s been surrounded by race mechanics his whole life.
“The guys did a brilliant job with the car straight out of the box. I think we always had a good car in F2.”
3. Felipe Drugovich
9th in 2020, 8th in 2021, 1st in 2022
Photo by: Bryn Lennon - Formula 1
Drugovich's MP Motorsport machine won both Barcelona races on his way to dominating the 2022 campaign
Shone on occasion during his rookie season with MP. Then returned to the Dutch team for 2022 after a year away and absolutely blitzed the opposition.
Team manager Jeremy Cotterill: “When he came to us we were a little bit unsure, and MP was going through a huge change as well. From the first official test that year you started to smell that there was something there, but then COVID hit, and that put everything back a little bit. We finished off the year very strongly, and by that time he’d already made his decision to go to Virtuosi [for 2021]. I’m not going to lie – I was absolutely gutted.
“When he came back to us, he worked extremely well with Paolo [Angilella] our director of engineering. The great thing was that he felt that he could and should win the F2 championship, and so when he came back to us, really from the get-go he was exactly what we expected. He was really on it, his feedback was good, the harmony within the team was good.
“It wasn’t all sweetness and light, there were various conversations that went on during the year, but we were always together. I can’t speak highly enough of him, to be honest. If you put Felipe on a clear track, there’s nothing gonna stop him. He can just bang out lap after lap after lap. Of course, he’s got to have the car to do it, but the group around him, everything just clicked.”
2. Oscar Piastri
1st in 2021
Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Piastri proved a rookie sensation in 2021 with a run of five consecutive poles the highlight
Incredible sole F2 season at Prema featured five consecutive poles from Silverstone until the end of the campaign (this was the year when F2 went to eight triple-headers), and undefeated in four feature races from Monza to Yas Marina.
Rosin: “He was competitive already in Monaco [round two, where he qualified on the second row] and was fighting for top position. And then from Silverstone, Monza, Sochi, Jeddah and Yas Marina, he was always pole position. To be honest it was not that surprising; he’s always been very, very competitive and really doing an amazing job. And all the time he was very calm, very reflective of what he had to do and so on.
“Of course, the first year in F2 has been something quite difficult for everybody, but he managed things pretty well. He and Robert [Shwartzman] were working together, challenging each other, and that’s always a great way to improve performance. With his pole, Oscar did something at Silverstone that is remarkable. I think it’s a combination of factors that put him in the right mindset to be able to achieve the most out of it. It was a great season, that one.”
1. George Russell
1st in 2018
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Russell pips Piastri to the top spot in our ranking as he faced tougher opposition in winning the 2018 title in his first year
It’s so difficult to split Piastri and Russell. Ask Prema chief Rosin and he agrees: “I think it’s an ex-aequo, that one!”
Russell’s ART boss Philippe argues: “I never worked with Oscar so it’s difficult for me to compare, but when you win the championship in the rookie season this means a lot. The ones who have done this in the past are Lewis Hamilton, and Nico Hulkenberg – great drivers. To compare them not in the same season, not in the same team, is always difficult. The only common point we are sure about them is that they are both fantastic guys.”
We’ve given it to Russell because his competition was tougher, he was with a team that had not had a terrific previous season in F2, and after eight rounds (the length of Piastri’s season) he was ahead in the points.
Talking about Russell, Philippe adds: “You always have a bit of question mark when someone is coming from GP3 because, as a rookie, you need to adapt. Sometimes it takes more time. With George, the adaptation was quite quick.
“He had not an advantage, but the new car was new for everybody. I remember at that time we were a bit afraid because as it was a new car we faced quite a lot of mechanical issues. We lost quite a lot of points, many with engine failures, but even with that, he was able to perform very well. It was a very good generation.
“The year before it was Charles Leclerc – there were quite a lot of very good talents during these years. George was mature, a very hard worker, and very understanding of what he and the team were doing, and capable to challenge every member of the team and to push everyone to do their best. He was already very professional and working in every detail.”
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Russell gave ART a glimpse of the driver he'd turn into as a grand prix race winner for Mercedes in F1
Average supertimes 2018-23
We have expressed each driver’s fastest lap of a race weekend as a percentage of the overall fastest, and then averaged them all out. To minimise the effect of outlier figures such as exclusion from qualifying, we have ordered the drivers on median average times. But we’ve also given you the mean averages in the column on the right. The middle column is number of F2 race weekends contested. Only drivers who participated in a minimum of six race weekends are included.
| Pos | Driver | Median average | Events | Mean average |
| 1 | Oscar Piastri | 100.000 | 8 | 100.179 (1) |
| 2 | George Russell | 100.189 | 12 | 100.293 (2) |
| 3 | Victor Martins | 100.234 | 13 | 100.326 (3) |
| 4 | Jack Doohan | 100.263 | 29 | 100.473 (6) |
| 5 | Nyck de Vries | 100.265 | 24 | 100.341 (4) |
| 6 | Alexander Albon | 100.267 | 12 | 100.369 (5) |
| 7 | Felipe Drugovich | 100.403 | 34 | 100.488 (8) |
| 8 | Zhou Guanyu | 100.416 | 32 | 100.555 (11) |
| 9 | Logan Sargeant | 100.417 | 15 | 100.734 (22) |
| 10 | Theo Pourchaire | 100.420 | 37 | 100.616 (14) |
| 11 | Yuki Tsunoda | 100.445 | 12 | 100.513 (9) |
| 12 | Lando Norris | 100.469 | 12 | 100.474 (7) |
| 13 | Callum Ilott | 100.512 | 24 | 100.616 (15) |
| 14 | Juri Vips | 100.538 | 26 | 100.724 (20) |
| 15 | Frederik Vesti | 100.554 | 27 | 100.798 (27) |
| 16 | Robert Shwartzman | 100.569 | 20 | 100.601 (13) |
| 17 | Sergio Sette Camara | 100.570 | 24 | 100.545 (10) |
| 18 | Luca Ghiotto | 100.613 | 37 | 100.654 (16) |
| 19 | Liam Lawson | 100.624 | 22 | 100.589 (12) |
| 20 | Jak Crawford | 100.626 | 13 | 100.919 (39) |
| 21 | Ayumu Iwasa | 100.634 | 27 | 100.813 (28) |
| 22 | Nicholas Latifi | 100.641 | 24 | 100.778 (26) |
| 23 | Ollie Bearman | 100.644 | 13 | 100.691 (17) |
| 24 | Dan Ticktum | 100.657 | 21 | 100.692 (18) |
| 25 | Jack Aitken | 100.689 | 38 | 100.886 (36) |
| 26 | Christian Lundgaard | 100.703 | 21 | 100.730 (21) |
| 27 | Richard Verschoor | 100.706 | 34 | 100.852 (32) |
| 28 | Jehan Daruvala | 100.708 | 46 | 100.774 (25) |
| 29 | Nobuharu Matsushita | 100.708 | 21 | 100.828 (29) |
| 30 | Mick Schumacher | 100.721 | 24 | 100.706 (19) |
Race Wins
| Pos | Driver | Wins | Feature wins |
| 1 | Felipe Drugovich | 8 | 5 |
| 2 | Nyck de Vries | 7 | 5 |
| 3 | George Russell | 7 | 4 |
| 4 | Fredrik Vesti | 7 | 2 |
| 5 | Theo Pourchaire | 6 | 5 |
| 6 | Oscar Piastri | 6 | 4 |
| 7 | Jack Doohan | 6 | 4 |
| 8 | Robert Shwartzman | 6 | 2 |
| 9 | Nicholas Latifi | 5 | 3 |
| 10 | Ayumu Iwasa | 5 | 3 |
Photo by: Dutch Photo Agency
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