F2 Bahrain preview: new faces, new challengers, new format

This weekend the 2022 Formula 2 championship gets underway in Bahrain, with plenty of new drivers and even a new team looking to open the season with a strong result.

The new weekend schedule

Liam Lawson, Carlin (Bryn Lennon, Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images / FIA F2)

It’s not just the makeup of the grid that’s different this year – the format has also been tweaked for the new season. Last year F2 and Formula 3 ran on separate weekends with three races across Saturday and Sunday, but now they’re back on the same billing and returning to the familiar schedule of one sprint race and one feature race.

It’s not a complete return to the pre-2021 way, however. The sprint race remains on Saturday with the feature race taking place before Sunday’s F1 Bahrain Grand Prix. Qualifying on Friday will set the grid for Sunday’s feature race, while the starting order for Saturday’s sprint race will be decided by reversing the top 10 from qualifying.

The points system has also been tweaked for 2022. The number of points available for pole position and the fastest lap in each race has been halved for this year, meaning pole is now worth two points and the fastest lap is a single point. The points for the sprint race have been adjusted as well – the top eight still score, but victory will now award 10 points with 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 available for the remaining places.

The feature race keeps the same F1 points system as it has always used, with 25 points for the winner down to one point for tenth place.

Will experience lead the way?

Juri Vips, Hitech (Joe Portlock, Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images / FIA F2)

Heading into a new season of F2, the focus will always be on the returning drivers with experience behind them.

In 2022 only four drivers are still with the same team as last year: Juri Vips (Hitech), Theo Pourchaire (ART), Ralph Boschung (Campos) and Roy Nissany (DAMS). Of those Vips and Pourchaire will be expected to be in the title hunt as both are fighting to impress F1 teams, and both have good working relationships with their teams to build on after their successful debuts.

Liam Lawson is another driver who will be one to watch this season and this weekend in particular. After winning on his debut last year with Hitech, the New Zealand Red Bull junior moves to Carlin who finished third in the teams’ championship last year. As one of the winners from Bahrain last year, he should be a threat for the top spot in Sakhir again.

Another driver who will be interesting to watch after moving teams is Felipe Drugovich. The Brazilian has switched from UNI-Virtuosi to MP Motorsport for his third season, which theoretically would be a drop down the grid.

But it was with MP that Drugovich took three victories (including one in Bahrain) during his debut season in 2020. With a more comfortable environment he may return to fighting at the front of the field again this year.

Felipe Drugovich, MP Motorsport (Joe Portlock, Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images / FIA F2)

Fresh faces, big impact

As Oscar Piastri showed last season when he won the title at the first attempt, experience isn’t everything in F2 – and there’s a bumper crop of rookies joining the series for 2022 looking to follow in his footsteps.

Reigning champions Prema are no exception. With Piastri leaving the series, Prema have called up Red Bull junior and reigning Formula 3 champion Dennis Hauger to take his seat. Given his and his team’s recent success, Hauger is considered one of the favourites for the title this year.

Hauger won’t be without his competition though. His F3 title rival Jack Doohan is also joining the grid for a full campaign this year with the UNI-Virtuosi team. His team enjoyed recent championship challenges led by Callum Ilott and Guanyu Zhou, while Doohan himself already has some competitive F2 experience under his belt from running in the final two rounds last year. This is definitely a pairing to watch out for.

Jack Doohan, UNI-Virtuosi (Joe Portlock, Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images / FIA F2)

Further along the grid there are more impressive rookies joining the field. Logan Sargeant, Frederik Vesti and Clement Novalak will race with Carlin, ART and MP Motorsport respectively after earning plenty of plaudits in F3 in recent years. Meanwhile F3 race winners and podium finishers Olli Caldwell, Ayumu Iwasa, Enzo Fittipaldi and Calan Williams will represent Campos, DAMS, Charouz and Trident respectively, and former F1 eSports driver Cem Bolukbasi joins Charouz after a race-winning Euroformula Open campaign last year.

And last but not least, there is a new team on the grid in the form of Van Amersfoort Racing. The Dutch feeder series stalwarts are taking over HWA’s vacant entry, and for their first season will pair experienced F2 and F3 driver Jake Hughes with rookie Amaury Cordeel.

Racing gets underway this weekend with the F2 sprint race on Saturday at 16:40 UTC and the feature race on Sunday at 10:40 UTC.

F3 Zandvoort: Leclerc soaks up pressure from Sargeant to win sprint race

Prema’s Arthur Leclerc took his second Formula 3 victory in the opening sprint race at Zandvoort, despite race-long pressure from a rapid Logan Sargeant behind.

Leclerc started the race in third behind Sargeant and reverse polesitter Amaury Cordeel. At lights out Sargeant jumped past Cordeel for the lead, but Leclerc got an even quicker launch off the line to pass both of them out of Tarzan. Cordeel’s start went from bad to worse as he was passed for third by Ayumu Iwasa, then spun around by Alex Smolyar through Turn 3.

Sargeant stuck close to the back of Leclerc through the opening stint of the race, rarely lapping more than three tenths behind the Prema. As Sargeant pushed Leclerc and Leclerc set early fastest laps to escape him, they started pulling clear of Iwasa, Jak Crawford and Caio Collet behind.

Logan Sargeant, Charouz Racing System (Dan Istitene, Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images / FIA F3)

On lap 5 Sargeant closed to just a tenth behind Leclerc as they crossed the line and looked to the outside heading into Tarzan. Leclerc held Sargeant off on that occasion, but the Charouz driver didn’t lose any time by backing out and kept up the assault.

Two laps later Sargeant pressured Leclerc into a lockup at Tarzan. Losing pace as he managed the flat spots on his tyres, Leclerc found himself leading a DRS train as Iwasa, Crawford, Collet and Jack Doohan all joined the pursuit of the lead. But despite locking up a second time on lap 11, Leclerc was still able to fend off Sargeant’s best efforts at an overtake as he took a better line through Turns 3 and 4 to counter Sargeant’s advantage into Turn 1.

Leclerc was handed another problem to manage on lap 16 when Jonathan Hoggard and Hunter Yeany ended up in the barriers to bring out the safety car and the field was bunched up together. But with Zandvoort’s tight nature making for a particular difficult recovery of the two cars, the stoppage ended up benefiting Leclerc as it left Sargeant with just four laps to rebuild momentum and make a move.

In the end, Leclerc was able to pull away from Sargeant at the restart as the Charouz had to back out of attacking the lead to defend second place from Iwasa. When they crossed the line four laps later Leclerc had more than a second in hand over Sargeant, the largest gap he’d had all race.

Iwasa finished third for his second podium of the season. Crawford took fourth for Hitech, ahead of Collet and Doohan.

L-R: Logan Sargeant, Arthur Leclerc, Ayumu Iwasa (Lars Baron, Getty Images / FIA F3)

Championship leader Dennis Hauger managed seventh place after starting 12th on the grid. The Prema driver made up places at the start to get into ninth between Victor Martins and Clement Novalak, then spent the rest of the race shaping up to improve.

Hauger momentarily lost out when an attempt around the outside of Martins on lap 14 sent him driving through the gravel and behind Novalak. But he managed to recover the position from Novalak at the restart, before claiming seventh from Martins two laps from the flag. Martins finished eighth, while Frederik Vesti and Olli Caldwell demoted Novalak out of the points in the final laps.

F3: Nannini fastest in first post-season test

Matteo Nannini topped the first day of Formula 3’s post-season test in Barcelona ahead of Jake Hughes and Calan Williams.

On his first day driving for Campos Racing, Nannini set his time of a 1:32.170s in the morning session, before switching to race simulations in the afternoon and logging a total of 64 laps. Hughes, returning to HWA, was only 0.257s slower than Nannini and set 62 laps overall.

Jenzer’s Williams led a tight trio of drivers with less than three tenths separating him from Dennis Hauger at Prema and ART rookie Victor Martins in fifth. Renault junior Martins, currently leading the 2020 Formula Renault Eurocup championship, was the only rookie within the top ten and had one of the highest lap counts with 74.

Victor Martins, ART (Photo Alexandre Guillaumot, DPPI / Renault Sport Media)

Enzo Fittipaldi (HWA) and Roman Stanek (ART) were sixth and seventh, while Jack Doohan was eighth-fastest overall and topped the afternoon session for Trident. Clement Novalak (Trident) and David Schumacher (Prema) rounded out the top ten.

HWA rookie William Alatalo recorded the most laps of the day with 93, while Novalak had the fewest with 49.

Six drivers set their fastest laps in the afternoon session, all of whom were rookies: Alessandro Famularo (Campos), Amaury Cordeel (MP Motorsport), Jonny Edgar (MP Motorsport), Patrik Pasma (Charouz), Rafael Villagomez (Trident) and Josef Knopp (Charouz).

Overall classification:

Pos. Driver Team Time (best) Laps (total)
1 Matteo Nannini Campos Racing 1:32.170 64
2 Jake Hughes HWA Racelab 1:32.427 62
3 Calan Williams Jenzer Motorsport 1:32.500 60
4 Dennis Hauger Prema Racing 1:32.512 74
5 Victor Martins (R) ART Grand Prix 1:32.527 74
6 Enzo Fittipaldi HWA Racelab 1:32.615 73
7 Roman Stanek ART Grand Prix 1:32.625 77
8 Jack Doohan Trident 1:32.777 57
9 Clement Novalak Trident 1:32.816 49
10 David Schumacher Prema Racing 1:32.948 73
11 Igor Fraga Hitech Grand Prix 1:33.069 70
12 Franco Copalinto (R) MP Motorsport 1:33.085 77
13 Jonathan Hoggard (R) Jenzer Motorsport 1:33.096 54
14 Artur Leclerc (R) Prema Racing 1:33.161 71
15 Jak Crawford (R) Hitech Grand Prix 1:33.286 72
16 Michael Belov Charouz Racing System 1:33.331 50
17 Ben Barnicoat Carlin Buzz Racing 1:33.450 51
18 Oliver Rasmussen (R) Hitech Grand Prix 1:33.492 74
19 Pierre Louis Chovet Campos Racing 1:33.509 64
20 Olli Caldwell ART Grand Prix 1:33.530 72
21 William Alatalo (R) HWA Racelab 1:33.772 93
22 Sophia Floersch Carlin Buzz Racing 1:33.819 61
23 Ido Cohen (R) Carlin Buzz Racing 1:33.838 61
24 Alessandro Famularo (R) Campos Racing 1:33.988 68
25 Amaury Cordeel (R) MP Motorsport 1:34.139 75
26 Jonny Edgar (R) MP Motorsport 1:34.389 71
27 Patrik Pasma (R) Charouz Racing System 1:34.911 64
28 Rafael Villagomez (R) Trident 1:35.062 65
29 Filip Ugran (R) Jenzer Motorsport 1:35.170 56
30 Josef Knopp (R) Charouz Racing System 1:35.758 70
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