The fight for the drivers’ championship may be the main story on track at Formula 2’s 2023 season finale at Yas Marina, but teams and drivers are already preparing for 2024 off of it, with many drivers signed to contracts but few publicly announced. Feeder Series gives you the lowdown on the drivers you can expect to see in F2 next year.

By Perceval Wolff and Michael McClure

For the first time since 2018, F2 will introduce a new chassis, which will make use of ground effect to be more similar to the aerodynamic formula used in F1 since 2022. It’s a change that reduces the experience advantage that returning drivers normally have, which has led some unorthodox driver line-ups to take shape for 2024 up and down the paddock.

The table at the end of this article will be updated as additional drivers are confirmed for seats on the grid.

ART Grand Prix

Current championship leader Théo Pourchaire is set to leave the team and the series irrespective of whether he wins the title. The third-year F2 driver and longtime Sauber junior has been strongly linked to a move to Super Formula with Toyota-powered Team Impul. Pourchaire, who finished as a distant runner-up to Felipe Drugovich in F2 last year, was set to test with rival Toyota squad Kondō Racing last December in preparation for a potential 2023 campaign, but the plans never came to fruition as Pourchaire instead returned to F2 with full financial support from Sauber.

Having finished second in F3 this year with Prema Racing, Williams junior Zak O’Sullivan will step up to ART Grand Prix, as was confirmed on 31 October. Beyond merely looking to fill the void left by Pourchaire’s impending departure, O’Sullivan will also have an eye on the F1 team’s seats, with Alex Albon’s contract due to conclude at the end of 2024 and the as-yet-unknown second driver not thought to be given a multi-year contract. O’Sullivan’s signing also heralds a new partnership between the Williams academy and the French team, which will field newly announced Williams junior Lia Block in F1 Academy next season.

Alongside him, Victor Martins is set to return for a second F2 season and his third consecutive season in the ART fold. The Alpine Academy driver had a chaotic opening few rounds punctuated by several crashes and a disqualification, but the 22-year-old Frenchman showed his raw speed right from the first round, qualifying second on debut before taking pole at Jeddah by seven tenths. He has since gained tremendous consistency to take 15 top-10 finishes from the last 16 races, and as the current highest-placed rookie, Martins should enter 2024 as a title favourite.

Prema Racing

Frederik Vesti is second in the 2023 F2 standings, 25 points off Pourchaire. The Mercedes junior could retain a role at Mercedes in F1, but his on-track future for 2024 remains unclear. Though it is widely expected that he will leave F2, Vesti has not come up in any endurance racing, Formula E, Super Formula, IndyCar or GT rumours so far.

Filling the Danish driver’s shoes next year at Prema will be Mercedes academy stablemate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who becomes the first driver to jump directly from FRECA to F2 since 2020 Formula Regional Europe champion Gianluca Petecof did so for two rounds in 2021. The 17-year-old Mercedes wunderkind most recently won the FRECA crown on his first attempt after having won the Formula Regional Middle East Championship in the winter and both the ADAC and Italian F4 championships in autumn of 2022. The Italian is not expected to challenge for this championship, but his immense talent could help him spring some surprises.

Alongside Antonelli, Ollie Bearman – who preceded Antonelli in completing the ADAC and Italian F4 title double in 2021 – is set to stay for another year with the Italian squad, this time to go for the championship. The 18-year-old Ferrari junior is seen as one of the junior single-seater drivers closest to F1 given the connections he is forging with Ferrari-powered Haas, for whom he is completing the mandatory rookie free practice sessions this year. A successful F2 season next year should keep those doors propped open, though he will have to manage competing pressures of being a title favourite and having alongside him a younger teammate carrying equally lofty, if not loftier, expectations.

Rodin Carlin

Having switched to Rodin Carlin for 2023 after a season and a half in F2 with Charouz, Enzo Fittipaldi is set for a change of scenery, although despite a recent IndyCar test with Dale Coyne Racing, he is likely to remain in F2.

Fittipaldi and Zane Maloney are both expected to lose the support of the Red Bull Junior Team for 2024, but the latter is set to continue with Rodin Carlin for a sophomore F2 season. The 20-year-old, who also joined the team for last weekend’s Macau F3 event in a livery devoid of Red Bull branding, has collected several podiums to sit 10th in the overall standings, though his scoring has been inconsistent, with just three points finishes from the past 14 races.

Reigning Super Formula and Super GT champion Ritomo Miyata will race outside East Asia for the first time in his career next year as he tackles a dual programme in F2 with an unconfirmed team and ELMS with Cool Racing in LMP2. The 24-year-old’s expected destination is Rodin Carlin alongside Maloney. In 2020, the team notably ran fellow Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda, whom Miyata dominated in Japanese F4 back in 2017. It’s a bit early to know Toyota’s exact plans for Miyata, but the Japanese manufacturer is thought to be preparing several of its drivers for Formula 1 possibilities, including recently announced 2024 McLaren reserve Ryō Hirakawa.

DAMS

For its third season since Charles Pic’s takeover, the French squad is set for an all-new line-up. Ayumu Iwasa, currently third in F2 and with the slimmest of chances at the title, will succeed fellow Red Bull junior Liam Lawson at Team Mugen in Super Formula next year. Ferrari junior Arthur Leclerc could switch to GT3 cars with the Italian brand, but his future destination is not yet confirmed.

Juan Manuel Correa is believed to be joining DAMS off the back of his first full F2 season since he suffered serious injuries in a debilitating crash in 2019 that claimed the life of Anthoine Hubert. Correa has taken six points finishes this year for Van Amersfoort Racing to sit 19th in the standings.

Correa is expected to form an all-American line-up with Jak Crawford, who has confirmed his participation in a second season of F2 but has yet to announce his team. The 18-year-old American has had a solid rookie season with Hitech this year to sit 13th with a win, four further podiums and a pole position, but he has already confirmed his split from the Red Bull Junior Team for 2024 after four years together.

MP Motorsport

The Dutch team has already confirmed both of its 2024 drivers, who will also compete this weekend at Yas Marina. For his third season on the F2 grid, Dennis Hauger will stay with MP, but without Red Bull support, as he aims to improve on 10th in 2022 and eighth at present in 2023.

The recent Macau GP second-place finisher will line up alongside the driver for whom he deputised in that event, Williams academy member Franco Colapinto. The Argentine clinched MP’s best championship result in their FIA F3 history by finishing fourth overall in the drivers’ standings.

Colapinto is already stepping up to F2 this weekend to replace Jehan Daruvala, who has left junior single-seaters as he prepares for a full-time drive with Maserati in Formula E next season.

Virtuosi Racing

Having fallen out of title contention already, F2 sophomore and Alpine F1 reserve Jack Doohan, currently fourth in the standings, has already confirmed that he will not do a third year in F2. The 20-year-old Australian has not been chosen by Alpine for its Hypercar programme in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), but a switch to endurance racing in another capacity still remains a possibility following his test with LMP2 squad Cool Racing. Doohan’s current Virtuosi teammate Amaury Cordeel is expected to move to another team in F2.

Instead, two drivers that have been announced in F1 junior team programmes since the last round at Monza are set to join Virtuosi next year. Reigning FIA F3 champion Gabriel Bortoleto is a new face in the rebranded and expanded McLaren Driver Development Programme and has been rumoured to step up to the British squad since the first half of the 2023 F3 season.

Kush Maini, one of the biggest surprises of the season, is expected to join Bortoleto at Virtuosi with the newly earned support of the Alpine Academy and two-time F1 champion Mika Häkkinen as a mentor. Racing for Campos this year, rookie Maini sits 11th in the standings with 60 points, making him the highest-scoring driver for the Spanish team in F2 since Jack Aitken in 2019.

Van Amersfoort Racing

Both of Van Amersfoort’s current drivers, Richard Verschoor and Juan Manuel Correa, are believed to be staying on the F2 grid but moving to other teams.

Coming from three seasons in FIA F3 – the latter two of which, with VAR, yielded four combined points – Rafael Villagómez is hoping to move up the ladder. He already participated in the F2 post-season tests last year before deciding to stay one more year in F3, but this year he is thought to be definitively moving up and has been embedded with the F2 team at both Zandvoort in August and this weekend at Yas Marina.

Alongside him remains somewhat of question mark for next year’s grid, though the identity of the second driver is thought to have become more settled in recent days. Rumours suggest that Enzo Fittipaldi would come in alongside Villagómez as one of F2’s most experienced drivers, helping the Dutch team acclimatise to their first car change during their short F2 tenure. Other options, however, are believed to remain on the table.

Hitech GP

Current drivers Isack Hadjar and Jak Crawford are understood to be switching to other teams.

In their place, Paul Aron, FIA F3’s third-place finisher from 2023, is set to head to Hitech after making his F2 debut this weekend with Trident. Aron was seen in the Hitech awning at the Macau Grand Prix, where he notably ran without Mercedes Junior Team branding on his helmet and car. It is widely assumed that he is ending his association with Mercedes after five seasons together as the German marque backs fast-rising Antonelli in F2 next year.

The Estonian is set to be joined by Amaury Cordeel, who is currently 20thin the standings for Virtuosi with eight points. In moving to Hitech, Cordeel, who previously raced for Van Amersfoort in 2022, would be joining a third F2 team in three seasons.

Campos Racing

The Valencia-based team appears set to field an all–Red Bull line-up next season as part of what is believed to be a new partnership with the Red Bull Junior Team. Despite originally holding talks with DAMS, Red Bull has decided to place both of its 2024 F2 drivers at Campos to compare them directly, following on from the Spanish team’s running three Red Bull–affiliated drivers at the Macau Grand Prix.

Isack Hadjar is expected to move to Campos next season, retaining Red Bull support despite a difficult rookie season with Hitech that sees him sit 14th in the standings ahead of Abu Dhabi. Having completed an F1 free practice for AlphaTauri already in Mexico and being scheduled for another this weekend with Red Bull, Hadjar is thought a serious contender for a future F1 drive.

But his ability to retain Marko’s confidence will depend on his performance against 18-year-old rookie and recent RBJT signing Pepe Martí, who is set to be Hadjar’s Campos teammate. The fifth-place finisher in F3 in 2023, who is present in Abu Dhabi this weekend, comes to F2 with much less experience but with deep familiarity with Campos, with whom he has raced since the start of his single-seater career in Spanish F4 back in 2021.

Trident

Clément Novalak, who scored a shock maiden victory at Zandvoort earlier this year, is thought to be leaving single-seaters with his departure from Trident ahead of this weekend’s F2 finale. The French driver is already preparing for his future by completing several tests in endurance racing, notably topping the timesheets in the LMP2 class of the World Endurance Championship’s post-season rookie test in Bahrain.

Though his budget situation remains unclear, Roman Staněk has confirmed his intention to continue in the series next year and is thus a favourite to remain with the Italian team. The Czech driver is currently 18^th in the standings after a season high in promise but low in results.

Richard Verschoor, currently ninth in the F2 standings, is set to come back to the team with which he raced in F2 in 2022 as he embarks on his fourth season in the category. He scored one win and three other podiums with the team in 2022 and also raced for them in Macau alongside Staněk, finishing the main race sixth.

PHM Racing

After a transition year under the moniker PHM Racing by Charouz, the team will fully assume the PHM Racing identity as the Czech side of the team, led by Antonín Charouz, departs F2. The futures of current drivers Roy Nissany and Josh Mason are unclear; both could still be in contention for a F2 seat with PHM, but they – Mason in particular – are not the favourites to continue.

For 2024, the team has already signed Joshua Duerksen, who will be the first Paraguayan driver in F2 history. The 20-year-old has fought hard in Italian F4 and FRECA, but the sponsorship-induced leap to F2 from 19th in FRECA with backmarkers Arden this season is a substantial gamble for his career.

Alongside him, the team is expected to take an experienced driver to mentor Duerksen, and Ralph Boschung is the favourite for this seat. The Swiss racer has taken part in each of the past seven seasons of F2, albeit with only two full-time campaigns among those. Nevertheless, with 118 F2 starts, the 26-year-old remains the most experienced driver in the current iteration of the series. He walked back claims earlier in the season that he would leave F2 at the end of 2023 and is believed to have been offered at least one driving option for 2024.

Date	Driver	Team
23 October 2023	Andrea Kimi Antonelli	Prema Racing
25 October 2023	Franco Colapinto	MP Motorsport
31 October 2023	Zak O’Sullivan	ART Grand Prix
1 November 2023	Dennis Hauger	MP Motorsport
10 November 2023	Joshua Duerksen	PHM Racing
27 November 2023	Gabriel Bortoleto	Virtuosi Racing
27 November 2023	Kush Maini	Virtuosi Racing
27 November 2023	Jak Crawford	DAMS
28 November 2023	Isack Hadjar	Campos Racing
28 November 2023	Pepe Martí	Campos Racing
28 November 2023	Zane Maloney	Rodin Carlin
28 November 2023	Ritomo Miyata	Rodin Carlin
30 November 2023	Paul Aron	Hitech GP
30 November 2023	Amaury Cordeel	Hitech GP
7 December 2023	Enzo Fittipaldi	Van Amersfoort Racing
20 December 2023	Richard Verschoor	Trident
20 December 2023	Ollie Bearman	Prema Racing
21 December 2023	Juan Manuel Correa	DAMS
18 January 2024	Victor Martins	ART Grand Prix
19 January 2024	Rafael Villagómez	Van Amersfoort Racing
22 January 2024	Roman Staněk	Trident
6 February 2024	Taylor Barnard	PHM Racing

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool