The FIA Formula 2 Championship has used the same car for the past six years, and Norwegian driver Dennis Hauger has struggled with it for the past two seasons. In 2024, F2 has a new car, and Hauger told Feeder Series it gave him more confidence and more grip to attack when he drove it for the first time. Can he finally launch a championship challenge?

By Steven Walton

Hauger was rapid and consistent when he won the Italian F4 Championship in 2019 and the Formula 3 Championship in 2021. However, since stepping up to F2 in 2022, he’s only had occasional success and has otherwise been hampered by bad luck or a lack of pace. Last year, he scored fewer points than Frederik Vesti, Jack Doohan, Ayumu Iwasa and Victor Martins, all drivers that he beat to the F3 crown in 2021.

In an interview with Feeder Series, Hauger said that he found his style in F4 and F3 but that “in F2, it’s been a bit of a struggle to figure it out.

“I think the general driving style of the F2 car is quite different to any of the other categories,” he added.

Despite his F2 troubles, Hauger reaffirmed his raw talent in November when he subbed in at the last minute in the Macau Grand Prix after getting a call from MP the Friday before. With just half a day of prep in a simulator, he stepped back into an F3 car with apparent ease, building his pace during the weekend and eventually stunning onlookers with a superb second-place finish in the main race.

“About 11 o’clock in the night, I got the confirmation. I had to fly four in the morning to the Netherlands to go for [a seat fit and simulator work],” he explained to Feeder Series in Macau after his podium.

“Hitech GP and Prema were in another level, at least in qualifying, and we couldn’t quite keep it up, but I think we found something today, and we were always progressing.”

In 2024, Hauger returns to F2 for his third season in the series. He continues with MP Motorsport, the team he joined in 2023. With 54 F2 starts under his belt already, Hauger will be one of the most experienced drivers on the grid. Of the drivers on the grid, only Enzo Fittipaldi and Richard Verschoor have more starts.

“For me, it’s one goal this year, and that’s P1,” Hauger said. “I’m going to make sure I’m doing everything I can to make it happen.”

New F2 car has ‘more grip, more aero’

The F2 car that dogged Hauger in the past two seasons will not be used in 2024. 

This year, F2 has a new car from Dallara, and it replaces the F2 2018 chassis that has been used for the past six years. The new car features revamped aerodynamics, including a distinctive new rear wing, and it introduces ground effect to increase the downforce. Overall, the driving experience is expected to be closer to F1.

Hauger drove the new car for the first time on January 24 during a shakedown for all teams in Barcelona. He only used the hard tyres and estimated he completed about 20 laps, saying that five to ten of them were “proper push” laps.

“It was a good feeling and generally a few differences, but the mindset and the structure around the car is pretty similar,” Hauger said. 

He said the biggest difference he could feel was the aerodynamics. 

“For low speed it was not too different, but for high speed I would say there was a bigger difference,” he said. “It’s just more grip, more aero. Balance-wise it’s not a crazy difference.

“Overall, I think it was just giving more confidence, more grip to attack and play around with it a bit, maybe a bit more on the oversteery side, but again depending on the compound,” Hauger said, noting that car balance tended to differ between tyre compounds. “I think it gives more confidence, at least for me, to push.”

Old F2 car not ‘my natural way of driving’

During his time in F2, Hauger has shown flashes of speed, but he has never had the same consistency he showed earlier in his career.

In 2022, he raced his rookie F2 season with the reigning teams’ champion, Prema Racing. He finished 10th in the standings with two wins and two further podiums. For 2023, he switched to Prema’s successor as teams’ champions, MP Motorsport, eventually finishing eighth in the standings with, once again, two wins and two more podiums.

These inconsistent results are atypical for Hauger. When he won the F3 title in 2021, he stood on the podium in nine of the 20 races. In Italian F4, he won more than half of the races on his way to the title.

Hauger said the Dallara F2 2018 car has been a bit of a struggle to figure out.

“It’s just a different way of driving that car compared to anything else, and it’s just not really been my natural way of driving it,” he said. 

“On the F1 sim or in F3, for that matter, it’s been quite natural, and it’s been good, but in F2 it’s just been a bit of a hassle to get my head around it and to really feel like 100%. … If you’re at 99% with the car you know, it’s a couple of tenths here and there. That certainly makes a big difference.”

Hauger said he had wanted to fight for the championship in 2023 and he felt he started in “a pretty good spot”. But he said he was hampered by “a few moments” early in the year.

He qualified fourth at the first round in Bahrain but had to retire from the feature race because of a technical issue. In the third round in Melbourne, he was running third in the feature race, but Victor Martins crashed into him with just four laps to go, dropping him out of the points.

“There was a few of those where in the main races, it lost us a lot points and [put us] on the back foot for quite some time,” Hauger said. “When we went to Europe, it was just struggling a bit, both me and my teammate to be fair, and [I] just couldn’t quite get back into it when we went into Europe.”

‘More motivation’ by leaving Red Bull

In October, before the 2023 F2 season had concluded, Hauger announced that he was parting ways with the Red Bull Junior Team for 2024, ending a six-year partnership that began when he was in his first season of car racing in British F4.

Asked if this split has affected his confidence, Hauger said, “Not really, to be honest. It’s been more of a motivation for me.” 

Hauger expressed gratitude for Red Bull’s support but added, “It’s always been a bit up and down. When I’ve been doing well, I’m back in it, and when it’s not gone as well, like last year, then you get out.”

Hauger said there would be other opportunities for him if he did well in 2024. 

“It’s still wide open if I do the job I need to do this year, and I think that’s what makes me get just more motivation.”

Hauger said he has built a strong bond with MP Motorsport, the team he first joined in 2023 and will continue with for a second year in 2024. Hauger is one of five drivers on the F2 grid racing with the same team this season as in 2023, the others being Ollie Bearman at Prema Racing; Victor Martins at ART Grand Prix; Zane Maloney at Rodin Motorsport, known as Rodin Carlin prior to this year; and Roman Staněk at Trident.

Speaking about MP, Hauger said, “We can trust each other on feedback and everything like that. … We’ve obviously worked together for a year already, so it obviously creates a bit more of a step where you can just get to work straight away and you know what you’re looking for.”

Can Hauger fight for the title in 2024?

This year will be Hauger’s last chance at winning the F2 championship because, according to him, the 2024 season will be his final one in the series. 

“I don’t think there’s any point doing one more year, to be honest. I feel like that’s the breaking point at that time,” he said.

Asked about what he needs to change this year to win the championship, Hauger said it would be about “fine-tuning what we know as a team with the car”, pointing out that he and MP were quick enough to win two races last year in Australia and Hungary. 

Hauger also said that he needed to be more consistent from race to race and maximise his qualifying. 

“I think I’ve shown that in my previous years, as well in F4 and F3, when I’m there, I’m capable of winning the championships and keeping that consistency level up.”

Hauger also looks to have gained some confidence from last year’s post-season test in Abu Dhabi. He explained that he was able to “try different things” for his mindset and feeling with the car during the three-day test. 

“It’s obviously a different car, but still in terms of balance with F2 car, it’s given me a few ideas and more I think [a] good mindset for how I need to drive around and also setup-wise how I need to try and get the car into this season.”

Hauger also spoke about the importance of F2’s pre-season test in Bahrain. Running from February 11 to 13, it is the only testing teams and drivers will get with the new F2 car before the first round of the year in Bahrain from February 29 to March 2.

Hauger said it would be key during this test to figure out “the most important things” with the new car, including getting the right setup and the right style for himself.

“That’s going to be my goal to try and make it my way of having it, my comfortable place to push,” he said. “It’s [a] very limited amount of testing we have, so we really have to use it as well as possible.”

Hauger said he was “confident enough” about winning this year’s title. 

“I don’t want to stand at the beginning of the season [saying] that we’re winning the championship, period. There’s a lot of work to be made, but I mean I’m confident with the team, I’m confident in myself that we can make something good.” 

He said he would have to get his head down, keep calm and focus on the pre-season test to be as prepared as possible.

“I think once we’ve done that, I’ll be even more confident that we can be up there fighting for the championship.”

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Correction, 11 February, 18:45 CET: A previous version of this article misstated the number of F2 drivers remaining with their 2023 teams. There are five, not four.

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