Global Information2021 Formula 2 Championship information
The 2021 FIA Formula 2 Championship was a motor racing championship for Formula 2 cars that was sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was the fifty-fifth season of Formula 2 racing and the fifth season run under the FIA Formula 2 Championship moniker. It was an open-wheel racing category that served as the second tier of formula racing in the FIA Global Pathway. The category was run in support of selected rounds of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship. As the championship was a spec series, all teams and drivers competing in the championship ran the same car, the Dallara F2 2018.[1][2] The championship was contested over twenty-four races at eight circuits. It began in March 2021 with a round in support of the Bahrain Grand Prix, and ended in December where it supported the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Mick Schumacher was the defending drivers champion having secured the title at the final race of the 2020 season at the Bahrain International Circuit. Schumacher was promoted to formula one with Haas for the 2021 F1 season. Schumacher's team Prema Racing entered the season as the defending teams champions having also secured their title at the final race of the 2020 season at Bahrain.
A new chassis package was due to be introduced for the 2021 season, but in a bid to cut costs in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lifespan of the Dallara F2 2018 chassis package was extended until 2023.[2][3]
Oscar Piastri secured the Drivers' Championship in Race 1 at Yas Marina, the season finale. Piastri became F2's first rookie champion since George Russell in 2018. He took five consecutive pole positions, from Silverstone to Yas Marina, and won all four feature races in the second half of the season in addition to sprint race victories in Bahrain and Jeddah. The strong results of Piastri and team-mate Robert Shwartzman, the championship runner-up, allowed Prema Racing to secure the Teams' Championship with a round to spare. As of March 2024, Prema Racing are the only team to win the Teams' Championship twice in the championship's history.
Piastri's dominance after the summer break quickly dented the title hopes of early title favourites like Shwartzman and Guanyu Zhou. Shwartzman faced trouble in the early rounds, suffering collisions at both Bahrain and Monaco, but he finished in the top six in all but one race from Baku until the end of the season. Zhou took four wins, including the feature races at Bahrain and Silverstone, but his campaign fizzled out after difficult weekends at Sochi and Jeddah. Dan Ticktum, Théo Pourchaire, Jüri Vips, and Jehan Daruvala took two wins each — with Vips becoming the first F2 driver to take two wins in one weekend—but none of them were able to sustain a season-long championship challenge. Other race winners were two drivers from New Zealand - it's Liam Lawson, when he crossed the finish line first on debut, and his fellow countrymen Marcus Armstrong, who won the first sprint race in Saudi Arabia, with rookie Richard Verschoor took his maiden F2 victory in the second sprint race at Great Britain.
In an effort to cut costs during the COVID-19 pandemic, series organizers adopted a new format for both F2 and FIA Formula 3 for the 2021 season. Notably, each weekend comprised three races rather than two. The traditional feature race with the mandatory pit-stop was moved to Sunday morning, while on Saturday, there were two sprint races with reverse-grid formats based on the results of qualifying and Race 1 respectively. The extra race was made possible because F3 races were run on different weekends to F2, with the exception of the Sochi round, leaving more space in the timetable of each race weekend. But the large gaps between rounds—eight weeks between Rounds 1 and 2 and 4 and 5 and ten weeks between Rounds 6 and 7—made the format widely unpopular, and it has been changed for the 2022 season.[4]
- ^ Kalinauckas, Alex. "New F2 car for 2018 revealed, featuring halo head protection device". autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Archived from the original on 1 September 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
- ^ a b Stuart, Greg (6 November 2020). "8 key questions on Formula 2 and Formula 3's new cost-cutting measures answered". formula1.com. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
- ^ "FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 announce cost cutting measures for 2021 onwards". fiaformula2.com. FIA Formula 2 Championship. Retrieved 6 November 2020.
- ^ Allen, Peter (24 September 2021). "F2 and F3 switch back to two races per weekend for 2022". Formula Scout. Retrieved 12 December 2021.