Ritomo Miyata has experienced a difficult start to his debut Formula 2 season after moving from Super Formula, where he won the 2023 title. Ahead of the Monaco F2 round, Miyata and Enzo Fittipaldi spoke to Feeder Series and other selected media at a press conference.

By Martin Lloyd

The Japanese driver is balancing his F2 commitments with a seat in the European Le Mans Series, where he competes in the LMP2 class for Cool Racing. He also raced at the 6 Hours of Spa in the World Endurance Championship earlier this month, finishing tenth in the LMGT3 class with the Akkodis ASP Team alongside Arnold Robin and Clemens Schmid.

While Miyata has shown flashes of pace in the opening rounds of the season, he has been limited by poor qualifying performances. In the first four rounds, the Rodin driver has only qualified in the top 10 on two occasions, limiting him to just three points-scoring finishes.

Having only left Japan in the off-season, Miyata is still adjusting to life in Europe.

“This season is the first F2 season for me, and in European motorsports, and it’s different from my career in Japan, that’s why there’s ups and downs in my results. I’m still learning about how to drive in F2, how to drive the European tracks.”

Whilst purpose-built tracks have proved testing for Miyata in the opening stages of his F2 career, the streets of Monaco represent an entirely different challenge.

“It’s very difficult to have good results, but it’s a very big challenge (driving at Monaco), so I’m very excited.”

Miyata had not driven on a single F2 track before this season. The only Japanese track visited regularly by European car racing series, Suzuka, is not on the F2 calendar. However, this is not the first time that Miyata has combined two campaigns in different series, and after his successes in 2023, he is confident that he can handle the workload of full-time seats in two championships.

“Obviously I was driving in Super Formula and Super GT, the single-seater and the sportscar. I won both championships”, Miyata said.  “This season, its very similar, with Formula 2 the single-seater, and then the European Le Mans Series as the prototype car. Its good, because I can understand the European tracks, European motorsports and European teams, so it’s a very good opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Enzo Fittipaldi also spoke to Feeder Series and other selected media on Wednesday. The Van Amersfoort Racing driver has experienced a mixed start to his third full F2 campaign. An impressive double-podium in Jeddah contrasts with non-points scores in every other race, and the Brazilian was frank about his start to the season.

“When we’re fast, you saw in Jeddah, we won the race and we finished on the podium. We’ve simply been uncompetitive on the other racetracks.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency