Formula 2 Report Cards: Abu Dhabi

Formula 2’s season came to a close at Abu Dhabi after a particularly lengthy, yet empty, season owing to the rather unpopular format change. The series crowned its new Champion too, and as it’s the season finale, I’m feeling quite generous so only highlighting the good performances for the weekend.

Here are the top of the class contenders from round eight of the 2021 F2 Championship:

Oscar Piastri – Qualifying: 1^st | Sprint 1: 3^rd | Sprint 2: DNF | Feature: 1^st

The Alpine Junior was crowned Champion after his podium in SR1, and we never really doubted that he would. Oscar has set the standard for consistently grabbing points which has built his Championship push, scoring five consecutive poles and four consecutive Feature Race victories, which saw him pull clear of his main rivals.

Making a lightning start to SR1 in taking four places before turn 1, Piastri then got by Carlin’s Dan Ticktum at the new turn 9 on lap 3. Four laps later he was up to fourth, having got by Hitech’s Liam Lawson at turn 6. Taking advantage of the DRS assistance, Piastri then took P3 off teammate Robert Schwartzman at turn 6 on lap 20 to ensure he’d be able to celebrate winning the Championship on the rostrum.

The shackles of mindful driving were removed, which you can tell clearly by Oscar’s rather scruffy SR2, forcing Lawson off at turn 5 and receiving a five-second time penalty for it. He wouldn’t get to serve it anyway, as he would be sandwiched between DAMS’ Roy Nissany and Lawson’s teammate Jüri Vips, retiring from the race with suspension damage.

He would then rebound on Sunday to lead pretty much from lights to flag, sealing victory in his final weekend in F2.

This weekend saw Piastri claim his third consecutive Championship, having won the Formula Renault European Cup in 2019 and the FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2020. Winning Formula 2 is not easy, doing it in your rookie year is sensational and I will shout this from the rooftops, it is a disgrace that Oscar does not have an F1 drive for next season. Believe me if I say that there will be some strongly worded tweets if he doesn’t get one for 2023.

Guanyu Zhou – Qualifying: 3^rd | Sprint 1: 8^th | Sprint 2: 1^st | Feature: 2^nd

In his final weekend in Formula 2, Guanyu took a sweep of points finishes, including two podiums in SR2 and the Feature Race respectively.

The UNI-Virtuosi driver just kept out of trouble in the first race, finishing where he started. He then ran in P2 for much of SR2, but would benefit from some more rotten luck for DAMS’ Marcus Armstrong as the Kiwi suffered mechanical issues whilst leading. Nevertheless, Zhou took his fourth win of the season.

In the Feature Race, a stern attack on shock front row starter Jack Doohan saw Zhou take P2 from the Australian, nailing him at turn 9 on the opening lap. But he was rather lucky to avoid the MP Motorsport driver spinning across the track at turn 10 after having ran wide defending his position. From there, it was a lonely race to taking another podium finish, only having to defend from Schwartzman after pitting for the medium tyres.

Zhou finishes his F2 stint P3 in the standings, just nine points behind runner-up Schwartzman. I wish Zhou the best of luck as he steps up to Alfa Romeo, the magnifying glass will definitely be on him as there certainly are some more deserving drivers without a seat in F1, something which isn’t so much as an opinion as it is a fact.

Felipe Drugovich – Qualifying: 8^th | Sprint 1: 2^nd | Sprint 2: 5^th | Feature: 3^rd

It’s been an odd season for the Brazilian after a stunning debut season in 2020 saw him pick up three race wins. This year sees him finish P8 in the Championship, but never reached the top step of the rostrum and he was seen making a few mistakes across the year.

However, Felipe was strong at Abu Dhabi and therefore makes a rare appearance on this top of the class list in 2021. He would challenge for the race win in SR1 but didn’t quite have enough to get past winner Jehan Daruvala. SR2 he would move up from 9^th on the grid take home some solid points with P5.

For the Feature Race, the UNI-Virtuosi driver started on the alternate strategy and made a key pass on ART’s Théo Pourchaire with five laps to go to be the lead driver on that strategy, he would pass Schwartzman into turn 9 with three laps to go to seal a second podium of the weekend.

Felipe may not have lived up to the expectations he garnered for his performances in 2020, but should he stay on for a third year in 2022, I have confidence that he will be a title contender

Robert Schwartzman – Qualifying: 4^th | Sprint 1: 4^th | Sprint 2: 2^nd | Feature: 5^th

It was going to be interesting to see how the Russian bounced back from the title challenge in 2020, a year that looked so promising until it crumbled away in the second half of that season. The one area that separated Schwartzman from a title push in 2021 was his inability to extract one-lap pace in an F2 car, especially in comparison to Piastri.

Which takes nothing away from the fact that he still achieved some superb results on his way to being the Championship runner-up in 2021. A trio of points finishes in Abu Dhabi took his run to 13-races overall. Having to play the team game to cede a podium position in SR1, Robert would get onto the rostrum in SR2, taking an impressive five positions on his way to that result.

In the Feature Race Robert made a strong start and was able to challenge Zhou, but would slip behind some of the alternate strategy runners in the end to finish 5^th.

It is unclear what the Russian’s plans are for 2022 at this time as he has announced his exit from the series, but he should take great confidence going forward from his time in F2. Unfortunately, he just didn’t quite live up to the promise from his title-winning Formula 3 season in 2019.

Goodbyes:

As we close the chapter on 2021, the paddock says goodbye to a number of figures and rules for 2022. Champion Oscar Piastri will move on to be Alpine F1 reserve driver, whilst teammate Schwartzman will move on to pastures new, remaining part of the Ferrari set-up. Of course, the paddock will be bid farewell to Guanyu Zhou who secured promotion to F1 with Alfa Romeo.

Outside of F1 talk, both Carlin’s Dan Ticktum and ART’s Christian Lundgaard will be switching to Formula E and IndyCar respectively. Dan will be joining the Nio 333 team whilst Christian will be reuniting with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, who he finished 12^th for in the single round he competed in at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in August 2021.

The series also bids farewell to HWA with Van Amersfoort Racing taking their place. The Dutch outfit famously ran Max Verstappen to third place in the 2014 FIA European Formula 3 Series before he secured the F1 seat at Toro Rosso, the rest is history. VAR will also take over HWA’s F3 operations too.

Finally, F2 will return to a two-race format for 2022 – ditching the short-lived three-race weekend format that we had this year. Unlike the previous iteration from 2005-2020, the Sprint Race will take place on the Saturday – reversing the top 10 from qualifying. Sunday will see the Feature race like we did this season. The Feature race remains the same points as F1, whilst the Sprint race will change to 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 for the top eight finishers instead of 15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1. Both Pole Position and Fastest Lap points will be cut in half as well, awarding two and one respectively. 

F2 has announced a bumper 14-round calendar for 2022 in light of the format change, and we don’t have to wait long for the class of 2022 to be in action. The series will be joining F1 at Bahrain on the weekend of the 18-20^th March 2022 as they kick off the quest to find Oscar Piastri’s successor.