2023 saw a titanic battle battle between Fredrick Vesti and Theo Pourchaire for the formula 2 title. The two would fight it out over the course of 26 different races that saw 13 different race winners, with the championship battle coming down to the last few laps at Abu Dhabi. While we won’t get to see the F2 champion in F1 machinery anytime soon, we did see some great driving and fantastic races throughout the 2023 season, which we will look over in todays article.

Oliver Bearmans Baku Brilliance

Ferrari junior driver Oliver Bearman was having a relatively quiet first season in F2, arriving in Baku with just a few points to his name. This was surprising given his form in F3 the year before, where he finished 3rd overall in his first season just 7 points away from 1st place. But Bearman turned up the heat in Baku and was immediately on the pace as he topped the practice session on Friday. He followed this up with an incredible pole position, as he clipped the turn 2 wall which damaged his steering, but managed to hold it all together and take the first pole position of his F2 career. Qualifying first meant that he would be starting 10th for the 21 lap sprint race on Saturday.

Beaman looked quick during the sprint as well, moving up to 4th place by lap 14. It had been a relatively quiet race by formula 2 standards at this point. That was until Roy Nissany hit the wall at turn 15, bringing out the safety car. The safety car would come in on lap 18 with just 3 laps left to go.

Dennis Hauger would lead the pack as the safety car came in, however as the drivers made their way down to turn one, they overestimated the amount of grip from the tyres with Hauger clipping the wall, 2nd place Victor Martins also clipped the wall leaving Jehan Daruvala with nowhere to go, smashing into the back of Martins car.

The spectacular crash left Bearman and teammate Vesti to fight for the lead, with Bearman coming out on top just before the safety car came out.

The race would end under the safety car with Oliver Bearman finishing in first place to win his first F2 race in dramatic style. But his weekend was far from over, lining up on pole position for Sundays 29 lap feature race he would have to do it all over again on Sunday.

He would do just that on Sunday, holding off the more experienced Theo Pourchaire to make it back to back wins in Baku, as the Ferrari team watched on from the sidelines. Bearmans perfect weekend put him in the spotlight for an F1 seat and while that hasn’t materialized, he did at least get to drive for Haas during first practice at Mexico and Abu Dhabi this year.

Redemption For Verschoor

In 2022, Dutch driver Richard Verschoor took a brilliant win in the feature race in Austria. However, after the race, his Trident team was unable to provide the required post-race fuel sample for scrutineering. Basically, he didn’t have the right amount of fuel in the car and so was disqualified from the race handing the victory to now F1 driver Logan Sargeant.

Returning to the circuit in 2023 with the Van-Amersfoort team there was little hope of hope of him doing anything more than scoring a few points as he lined up 11th on the grid for the feature race. He would go for the alternative race strategy meaning that he would start on the harder compound of tyre and stay out longer than most of the other drivers, pitting later for the softer rubber to go on the attack in the final few laps.

By lap 28 of 40 Verschoor was in second place with most other drivers having made their pit stop already. One of the other drivers on the alternative strategy was Arthur Leclerc who pitted a lap earlier. Once he emerged back out onto the track he quickly had to pull over with the rear right tyre having fallen off the car. This brought out the safety car which forced everyone to slow down giving the perfect opportunity for Verschoor to pit. Thanks to the safety car he would come out of the pits in 5th place and immediately got to work, passing Pourchaire and Martins on the same lap, taking full advantage of the softer tyres. Verschoor wasn’t the only one who got lucky with the safety car as Ayumu Iwasa was also flying meaning Verschoor would have to watch his mirrors as he caught up to the race leaders. He passed 2nd place driver Jack Doohan on lap 38 with Iwasa quickly following through. The Dutch crowd who had came to cheer for Max Verstappen ended up cheering for Verschoor, their roars being heard in the background as he passed race leader Vesti for the lead on the penultimate lap.

He would still have to hold off Iwasa for the last lap, crossing the line just 4 tenths of a second ahead off him!

It was second time lucky for Verschoor, taking his teams first win in F2 in front of his home crowd and getting redemption for last years heartbreak with an even more impressive win.

He immediately dedicated the win to fellow Dutch driver Dilano van ‘t Hoff who lost his life earlier this year during a crash at spa francoshamps whilst racing in the formula regional European championship.

A Chaotic Weekend At Zandvoort

Zandvoort had by far the craziest weekend of the season. The weekend would start off with American Driver Jak Crawford taking a maiden pole position in a dramatic qualifying session, which saw three Red Flags which denied the field their chance to improve. The interrupted session resulted in many drivers being out of position and with rain due for Saturdays sprint, fans would’ve been expecting an entertaining race.

What fans probably didn’t expect was for the sprint race to be called off due to to the weather. Drama already began to unfold before lights out, as championship leader Pourchaire was due to start on reverse grid pole however wasn’t able to take the start after a mechanical issue forced the French driver to begin from the pit lane. The race would start under the safety car with Isack Hajar leading the field. When the safety car came in, Hajar led comfortably as drivers behind struggled for grip. His teammate Crawford made a bold move to get past Kush Maini, making contact and sending the two spinning off into mist.

When the mist cleared, we were met with the dramatic sight of Kush Mainis car on top of teammate Ralf Boschung who got caught up in the incident. This unsurprisingly resulted in a red flag and a lengthy delay until we got racing again.

When the cars finally did emerge back out onto the track they quickly discovered that the conditions were worse than before, with drivers struggling to keep their car on the road, even behind the safety car.

The cars subsequently returned to the pit lane with the session being red flagged yet again. This time the session wouldn’t resume, which gave Isack Hajar his first win in Formula 2, however it didn’t count for anything because there was only one racing lap with the rest being behind the safety car. This mean that no points could be awarded.

The drama would continue into Sunday as it had stopped raining, however it was still damp making the track very slippery. Crawford would get a perfect start as those behind him struggled for grip with Fredrick Vesti spinning round at turn one and his teammate Oliver Bearman being spun round by Correa. Further back in the field Jack Doohan spun round at the last corner, bringing out the safety car.

The race would resume for a few seconds before Ayumu Iwasa ran deep at Turn 1 taking Maini off the road with him.

The race would settle down for a bit with most drivers having pitted by lap 10 leaving Clément Novalak in the lead. The drama would resume on lap 10 as as championship leader Pourchaire crashed on his out lap bringing out the safety car.

With Pourchaire now out of the picture, title rival Fredrick Vesti took the opportunity to pit under the safety car. His hopes of retaking the lead of the Championship were shattered almost immediately as both rear tyres fell off the car on his outlap and he too was out of the running.

With the two main title rivals out of the running, the rest of the grid capitalized on the opportunity with Novalak leading the pack, having stopped just prior to the Safety Car. Novalak would lead the rest of the race, coming from 13th to 1st and taking the fastest lap en route to a maiden F2 win in just his second top 10 finish off the season.

Drama At Monza

The series would head to Monza for the penultimate round off the season with the championship still being fiercely contended by Theo Pourchaire and Fredrick Vesti. Vesti closed the gap in the standings to Pourchaire by winning the sprint race on Saturday which would’ve made Pourchaire sweat. Thankfully for him, he would be lining up on pole position for the feature race on Sunday alongside Vestis teammate Oliver Bearman.

Bearman would get the better start than Pourchaire, taking the lead off him on the first lap. Further back Vesti was making up places, trying to take 4th off of Roman Stanek who forced Vesti onto the grass which sent him into a spin and out of the race. With his main rival out of the race, all Pourchaire needed to do was keep the car on track in order to take points away from Vesti.

The other drivers however had nothing to lose and could push as hard as they want with Bearman extending his lead from Pourchaire. Some drivers ended up pushing too hard such as Arthur Leclerc, who broke a little to late at turn one, sending himself into a spin as he tried to get the car stopped.

On lap 12 Zane Maloney was sent into a spin on the main straight after getting tagged by Roy Nissany resulting in a big crash on the main straight.

On lap 28 Jak Crawford pulled over after making contact with Stanek bringing out the safety car to end the race, with Bearman taking his 4th win in F2.

Title Showdown In Abu Dhabi

We would end the season in Abu Dhabi, with Pourchaire leading the championship by 25 points from Vesti. Vesti would need an almost perfect weekend if he wanted to take the title, and that’s assuming Pourchaire didn’t score any points which was wishful thinking. He would get his weekend off to a good start as he qualified 9th, meaning that he would start 2nd for the sprint race and with Pourchaire starting 14th things suddenly weren’t looking so bad for Vesti.

Vesti would win the sprint race on Saturday, bringing down the gap to just 16 points. This meant that he would have to finish at least 3rd, with the fastest lap on Sunday to win the title, again assuming that Pourchaire doesn’t score any points. Starting from 9th this would be challenging to say the least, but he had given himself the best possible chance with his sprint race win on Saturday.

The final race off the F2 season would get underway on Sunday with Vesti on the alternative strategy which would see him pit later than most other drivers and go on the attack towards the end. Pourchaire would pit early and by the time Vesti had made his stop, Pourchaire was ahead of his rival in 6th and in the points meaning that Vesti would pretty much have to win the race to become champion.

With the fresher tyres Vesti managed to get past Pourchaire and up into 6th, which became 5th, then 4th but it wasn’t enough. With Pourchaire in 6th place he had enough points to stay ahead of Vesti in the standings. Vesti would make a last lap overtake to get onto to podium to sign off his 2023 season.

But the day belonged to Theo Pourchaire who became the formula 2 champion in his third season at just 20 years old.

You can read our full reports on the weekend from earlier this year on our website

Next year will see formula 2 use brand new cars and with 8 new drivers already announced to be stepping up to F2, next year could see an even more exciting F2 season.

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