Who’s looking good in F2 and F3 ahead of their British Grand Prix support billing

Older Autosport readers will remember that the headline single-seater action supporting the British Grand Prix used to be the much-anticipated Formula 3 race – often on the F1 qualifying day. These days the Silverstone talent spotters are well-served: F2 and F3, each with a race on Saturday (the reversed-grid sprint race) and their feature race on Sunday.

With the European season just getting into gear, Ferrari Driver Academy recruit Rafael Camara and Red Bull Junior Nikola Tsolov, last year’s F3 champion and runner-up respectively, have continued their battle in F2. Alex Dunne is, for his second year in F2, still that tantalising balancing act between dynamite pace and unpredictability. But it’s the fourth member of the leading quartet whose progress has been perhaps the most intriguing.

Gabriele Mini, like Dunne, is an Alpine F1 protege. The Sicilian seems to have been around for a while now – and that’s because he has. Back in 2020, at the age of 15, he won the Italian F4 title, in which a certain Gabriel Bortoleto was fifth, both of them as rookies driving for Prema Racing. Since then, he’s spent two seasons in Formula Regional, two in F3 (runner-up to Leonardo Fornaroli in 2024), and a painful rookie F2 season last year with Prema. Now he’s with MP Motorsport, and could become the Dutch team’s first F2 champion since Felipe Drugovich in 2022.

A brilliant feature race win in Miami and then a strong weekend in Montreal propelled Mini to the head of the table. Monaco didn’t go quite so well, but Barcelona brought some strong results, and he sits in the series lead, six points ahead of Tsolov heading into the Austrian GP support races, after which the teams head to Silverstone.

Ask MP team manager Jeremy Cotterill to compare Mini to Drugovich or the squad’s 2025 title contender Richard Verschoor, and he replies: “The one thing with all those three is when things are not perfect, they’re calm. If you’ve got an issue in the pitlane or whatever, they’re always calm under pressure. They realise it’s an extremely stressful situation for all involved, and getting on the radio and shouting doesn’t speed things up or change anything. 

“He’s calm, constructive, and accepting that when things aren’t perfect he has to take his role and put points in the bag. He also knows that when things are right he has to deliver – that’s part and parcel of the job.”

Alpine F1 protege Mini led the points table for MP Motorsport ahead of the Austria rounds

Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images

As a youngster, Cotterill himself was pretty handy in the cockpit. As far as GP support races are concerned, he was second to Gareth Rees in the Opel Lotus Euroseries round at Silverstone in 1992, and third in the Montreal Formula Atlantic round in 1994 – F2’s visit in May was his first to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 32 years! Things are far less predictable these days though.

“I’m looking at more teams and more drivers than probably any before in my F2 history,” he says when pushed about the main opposition. “Every team has got someone who’s going to pop up at points. Both Rodin cars [Dunne and Martinius Stenshorne] are quick, both Campos cars [Tsolov and Noel Leon] are quick. I don’t think we’ve seen the best from Colton Herta yet either. Laurens van Hoepen has been a revelation at Trident; Dino Beganovic has the experience at DAMS. 

“In previous years you could say, ‘It’s between those four’, but now there’s a few more who can pop up with a result. It keeps the championship interesting that’s for sure, although I’d much prefer a really boring one and win it by 100 points with three rounds to go! But if I had to pick two or three, I’d say Gabri, Camara and Tsolov at the moment. And we need to get our second car delivering. Olly [Goethe] has had a blip but we hope we’re coming out of that now.”

“In previous years you could say, ‘It’s between those four’, but now there’s a few more who can pop up with a result. It keeps the championship interesting that’s for sure”  Jeremy Cotterill 

That doesn’t just apply to Goethe. All three of MP’s F3 drivers, each an F1 protege, have had a tougher start to the season than might have been expected. Alessandro Giusti (Williams) is currently the best-placed ahead of Tuukka Taponen (Ferrari) and Mattia Colnaghi (Red Bull), but none were troubling the top 10 before the Austrian races.

At the top of the tree in F3 is, just like in F2, Campos Racing, with Ugo Ugochukwu heading Theophile Nael in a 1-2. While he was a McLaren junior, Ugochukwu’s form was puzzlingly inconsistent and he was liable to make mistakes. This term, he’s been staggeringly fast but hasn’t eradicated the errors. That has kept things close, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s consistent Spaniard Bruno del Pino and Trident’s British golden boy (and Audi F1 hope) Freddie Slater both within 11 points of the summit.

Both F2 and F3 started their seasons largely on temporary/street tracks. “Now we’re on more traditional circuits, and we’ll see if there’s a pattern starting to emerge,” predicts Cotterill. 

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Ugochukwu has shown hugely impressive pace, although his error-prone past is not fully behind him

Photo by: Dom Gibbons – Formula 1 via Getty Images