2021 Formula 2 Championship

2021 FIA Formula 2 Championship

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2020

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2022

Parent series:
FIA Formula 1 World Championship
Feeder series:
FIA Formula 3 Championship

Prema Racing entered the season as the defending Teams' Champions.

The 2021 FIA Formula 2 Championship is a motor racing championship for Formula 2 cars that is sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship is the fifty-fifth season of Formula 2 racing and the fifth season run under the FIA Formula 2 Championship moniker. It is an open-wheel racing category that serves as the second tier of formula racing in the FIA Global Pathway. The category is scheduled to be run in support of selected rounds of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship. As the championship is a spec series, all teams and drivers competing in the championship will run the same car, the Dallara F2 2018. The championship is due to be contested over twenty-four races at eight circuits. It will start in March 2021 with a round in support of the Bahrain Grand Prix, and end in December where it will support the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

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.

Prema Racing are the reigning teams' champions, having secured their second Formula 2 title at the final round of the 2020 season.

Entries

The following teams and drivers are under contract to compete in the 2021 championship. As the championship is a spec series, all competitors race with an identical Dallara F2 2018 chassis with a V6 turbo engine developed by Mecachrome. Teams compete with tyres supplied by Pirelli. The same eleven teams who competed during the 2020 season were retained for the next three-year cycle.

Entrant	No.	Driver name	Rounds
Prema Racing	1	Robert Shwartzman	1
	2	Oscar Piastri	1
UNI-Virtuosi Racing	3	Guanyu Zhou	1
	4	Felipe Drugovich	1
Carlin	5	Dan Ticktum	1
	6	Jehan Daruvala	1
Hitech Grand Prix	7	Liam Lawson	1
	8	Jüri Vips	1
ART Grand Prix	9	Christian Lundgaard	1
	10	Théo Pourchaire	1
MP Motorsport	11	Richard Verschoor	1
	12	Lirim Zendeli	1
Charouz Racing System	14	David Beckmann	1
	15	Guilherme Samaia	1
DAMS	16	Roy Nissany	1
	17	Marcus Armstrong	1
Campos Racing	20	Gianluca Petecof	1
	21	Ralph Boschung	1
HWA Racelab	22	Matteo Nannini	1
	23	Alessio Deledda	1
Trident	24	Bent Viscaal	1
	25	Marino Sato	1
Source:

Driver changes

Oscar Piastri, the winner of the 2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship, will join the Formula 2 Championship with Prema Racing. Piastri had won the Formula 3 title with the team. He will fill the seat vacated by Mick Schumacher, who graduated to Formula 1 with Haas.

Formula 3 regular Lirim Zendeli will join the championship with MP Motorsport. Zendeli will replace Felipe Drugovich, who left the team to join UNI-Virtuosi. Drugovich will in turn replace 2020 runner-up Callum Ilott, who left the championship to become a test-driver for Scuderia Ferrari.

Yuki Tsunoda graduated to Formula One with AlphaTauri. He will be replaced at Carlin by Dan Ticktum moving from DAMS.

Nikita Mazepin and Luca Ghiotto will leave Hitech Grand Prix. The former graduated to Formula One with Haas. The team promoted Liam Lawson from FIA Formula 3 outfit and hired Jüri Vips, who substituted for injured Gelael in 2020 at DAMS.

Théo Pourchaire will join the championship on a full-time basis with ART Grand Prix, replacing Marcus Armstrong, who will switch to DAMS. Sean Gelael will leave DAMS and Formula 2 after five consecutive years in the championship and its predecessor GP2 Series to join sports car racing team Jota Sport. He will be replaced by Roy Nissany who vacated a seat at Trident.

Ralph Boschung will return for a full-time drive with Campos Racing, the team he raced with in his first Formula 2 season in 2017. Boschung made one guest appearance with the team in 2020 at the season finale. Completing the Campos lineup is the 2020 Formula Regional European Championship winner Gianluca Petecof.

HWA Racelab will enter a new driver line-up in Alessio Deledda and Matteo Nannini. Nannini will combine his Formula 2 campaign with an entry in the Formula 3 championship. Artem Markelov, who drove for HWA Racelab in 2020, left the team and the championship.

Pedro Piquet vacated his seat at Charouz Racing System and left Formula 2 after one year in the series, citing financial reasons. Giuliano Alesi will also leave Formula 2 in order to compete in Super Formula Lights series.

Calendar

A provisional calendar was published in November 2020. An updated version due to the postponement of 2021 Australian Grand Prix, which required several Grands Prix to change dates, was revealed in January 2021.

Round	Circuit	Sprint races	Feature race
1	Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir	27 March	28 March
2	Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo	22 May	23 May
3	Baku City Circuit, Baku	5 June	6 June
4	Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone	17 July	18 July
5	Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Monza	11 September	12 September
6	Sochi Autodrom, Sochi	25 September	26 September
7	Jeddah Street Circuit, Jeddah	4 December	5 December
8	Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi	11 December	12 December
Source:

Calendar changes

As a consequence of cost-cutting measures, the Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships will adopt a new format. The two championships will alternate between Grands Prix meetings and will no longer appear together on the support race bill. Although this will reduce the number of rounds, both championships will run three races at a Grand Prix instead of two, keeping the overall number of races the same as in previous years. The format change was designed to cut costs for teams competing in both championships by allowing them to rotate staff between each championship.

As the 2020 championship was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 calendar will feature substantial revisions:

• The Mugello round and one of the rounds at the Red Bull Ring, the Silverstone Circuit and the Bahrain International Circuit were removed from the schedule as these rounds were run in support of one-off Grands Prix.
• The Monaco, Baku and Yas Marina rounds will return after having been cancelled in 2020.
• The Barcelona, Spa-Francorchamps and Hungaroring rounds were removed from the schedule to make way for the new weekend format.
• The championship will make its début at the Jeddah Street Circuit and running in support of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, a brand-new event on the Formula 1 calendar.

The Circuit Zandvoort had been included on the 2020 calendar, but was removed from the schedule in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was initially expected that the round would feature on the 2021 calendar, but it was not included on the provisional calendar. The circuit was included on the Formula 3 calendar instead.

Regulation changes

Sporting changes

The weekend format is scheduled to be changed with two sprint races held on Saturday and the feature race with mandatory pit stop on Sunday. Qualifying will determine grid of the feature race and the first sprint race; the grid for the first sprint race will be set by reversing the top ten qualifying positions. The grid of the second race will be formed by results of the first sprint race, with top ten finishers reversed. The addition of a third race to the weekend schedule will see teams provided with an extra set of tyres.

Results and standings

Season summary

Round		Circuit	Pole position	Fastest lap	Winning driver	Winning team	Report
1	S1	Bahrain International Circuit					Report
	S2
	F		Guanyu Zhou
2	S1	Circuit de Monaco					Report
	S2
	F
3	S1	Baku City Circuit					Report
	S2
	F
4	S1	Silverstone Circuit					Report
	S2
	F
5	S1	Autodromo Nazionale di Monza					Report
	S2
	F
6	S1	Sochi Autodrom					Report
	S2
	F
7	S1	Jeddah Street Circuit					Report
	S2
	F
8	S1	Yas Marina Circuit					Report
	S2
	F

Scoring system

Points are awarded to the top eight classified finishers in the Sprint races, and to the top ten classified finishers in the Feature race. The pole-sitter in the feature race also receives four points, and two points is given to the driver who sets the fastest lap inside the top ten in both the feature and sprint races. No extra points are awarded to the pole-sitter in the sprint races as the grid for the first sprint race is set by reversing the top eight qualifiers and the grid for the second sprint race is based on the results of the first race.

Sprint race points

Points are awarded to the top eight classified finishers, excluding the fastest lap points which are given to the top ten classified finishers.

Position	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	FL
Points	15	12	10	8	6	4	2	1	2

Feature race points

Points are awarded to the top ten classified finishers. Bonus points are awarded to the pole-sitter and to the driver who sets the fastest lap and finishes in the top ten.

Position	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	Pole	FL
Points	25	18	15	12	10	8	6	4	2	1	4	2

Drivers' championship

Pos. Driver BHR MON BAK SIL MNZ SOC JDH YMC Points – Marcus Armstrong Ret 10 5 10 Ret Ret 7 Ret Ret 9 2 12 11 15 9 11 C 11 1 Ret 8 10 Ret 7 49 – David Beckmann 3 7 11 12 Ret 13 9 2 12 13 8 15 10 5 16† 15 C 10 32 – Ralph Boschung Ret 17 15 4 5 6 6 Ret 5 14 Ret 14 14 9 14 6 C 19† 15 9 3 9 3 9 59.5 – Jehan Daruvala 2 4 6 11 8 Ret 4 3 7 12 19 10 9 1 5 12 C 3 10 14 11 1 7 11 113 – Alessio Deledda 18 Ret Ret 18 12 17 Ret 15 19 Ret Ret 22 13 19 Ret 18 C 17 Ret Ret 20 18 Ret 19 0 – Felipe Drugovich 16 14 9 2 14 3 14 10 4 4 7 6 Ret 17 12 DNS C DNS 4 10 5 2 5 3 105 – Liam Lawson 1 Ret 3 9 DSQ 7 Ret 7 6 7 5 11 5 4 Ret Ret C 7 2 Ret 9 5 6 20† 103 – Christian Lundgaard 6 2 12 Ret Ret 12 11 Ret 9 3 13 21 3 14 10 7 C 9 6 15 7 15 18 15 50 – Matteo Nannini 14 9 10 15 11 DNS 15 14 18 1 – Roy Nissany 12 15 Ret 3 Ret 9 16 16 16 Ret 12 16 Ret 18 8 16 C 15 13 11 15 14 17 13 16 – Gianluca Petecof 17 13 Ret Ret Ret 16 0 – Oscar Piastri 5 1 19† 8 2 2 Ret 8 2 6 4 3 4 7 1 9 C 1 8 1 1 3 Ret 1 252.5 – Théo Pourchaire Ret 6 8 7 4 1 5 9 Ret 5 10 8 1 10 4 5 C 2 Ret 6 Ret 7 9 4 140 – Guilherme Samaia 11 11 16 17 13 15 17 14 18 Ret 17 20 Ret Ret Ret 13 C 13 Ret Ret 17 16 12 16 0 – Marino Sato 15 8 14 19† Ret 14 18 13 15 NC 16 19 NC 20 Ret 14 C 14 Ret 13 18 19 16 17 1 – Robert Shwartzman 4 Ret 7 Ret 10 4 1 5 3 1 15 5 6 3 6 3 C 4 5 3 2 4 2 5 192 – Dan Ticktum 8 Ret 2 6 1 Ret 2 6 8 8 3 2 Ret 11 3 1 C 5 7 4 10 6 4 6 159.5 – Richard Verschoor Ret 5 4 13 6 10 12 Ret 14 10 1 4 Ret 13 DSQ 8 C 8 Ret 11 10 56 – Jüri Vips 10 16 13 5 3 8 8 1 1 2 6 7 8 6 Ret 2 C Ret 3 Ret 6 12 Ret 8 120 – Bent Viscaal 13 12 17 14 11 11 10 4 17 16 Ret 13 7 2 15† Ret C Ret 9 2 12 13 10 12 34 – Lirim Zendeli 9 Ret 18 15 7 Ret 13 Ret 10 11 9 9 15† 12 7 10 C 16 13 – Guanyu Zhou 7 3 1 1 15 5 3 Ret 13 Ret 11 1 2 8 2 DNS C 6 17 8 4 8 1 2 183 Pos. Driver BHR MON BAK SIL MNZ SOC JDH YMC Points

Key Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Other points position Blue Other classified position Not classified, finished (NC) Purple Not classified, retired (Ret) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Race cancelled (C) Blank Did not practice (DNP) Excluded (EX) Did not arrive (DNA) Withdrawn (WD) Text formatting Meaning Bold Pole position point(s) Italics Fastest lap point(s)

Notes:

• † – Drivers did not finish the race, but were classified as they completed more than 90% of the race distance.
• ‡ – Half points were awarded for the sprint race, as less than 75% of the scheduled distance was completed.

External links

• FIA Formula 2 Championship official website