John Bennett finished his first Formula 2 race in 12th place after starting from 19th. Speaking to Feeder Series in the Qatar paddock after the sprint race, Bennett explained how he earned his F2 shot after having competed in the Britain-based GB3 Championship this year.

By Michael McClure

Bennett joined Van Amersfoort Racing for the final two rounds of the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi as the replacement for Enzo Fittipaldi. The 23-year-old Brazilian cut his third full F2 season short after scoring one victory in the second round but never returning to the podium.

While three other drivers – Dino Beganovic, Max Esterson and Cian Shields – have joined Bennett as F2 newcomers, the 21-year-old is unique in having graduated from GB3 competition rather than F3. His jump to F2 makes him the first GB3 graduate to move directly to the second tier.

The British-Irish driver finished second in GB3 in 2024, scoring three wins and eight further podiums from 23 races. He ended the season 22 points behind champion Louis Sharp. He finished eighth and tenth in his first two GB3 seasons, which were also his first two in single-seaters after a stint in Ginettas.

Just nine days after completing his third GB3 campaign at the end of September, Bennett was in Jerez for F3’s post-season test with Van Amersfoort. He appeared with the team again in Barcelona the week after. Both tests aimed to prepare him for a season in F3.

Bennett described his recent F2 promotion with Van Amersfoort as “super last minute” and said he had only found out about it two weeks ago. 

“We completed the F3 official testing, and then I thought I’d have basically a four-month break of no driving,” he told Feeder Series. “I was actually doing simulator work for the first F3 rounds next year.

“And then two weeks ago, I was in Spa with JHR, my GB3 team, coaching for them. After the first night when I was coaching, I received a phone call from Brad [Joyce], the team principal, about this opportunity in F2. I couldn’t really believe the phone call, to be honest, but we had to accept.

“These past two weeks have really just been simming all day, every day, to try to do as much as possible and learn as much as possible,” he added. “The fact [VAR] have faith in me for this step gives me a lot of confidence.”

Bennett qualified 19th of 22 drivers on his debut in Qatar and finished the sprint race 12th, five places ahead of teammate Rafael Villagómez.

After inheriting a place thanks to Pepe Martí’s failure to take the start, Bennett got past Max Esterson on the opening lap and nearly made another pass on Luke Browning at the end of the lap. He also overtook Cian Shields and Amaury Cordeel during the race before the late-race retirements of Kush Maini and Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Ritomo Miyata’s post-race penalty lifted him to 12th.

Bennett said afterwards that the race was “really good” and that he’d “learnt loads”, especially when it came to managing tyre degradation and dirty air.

“The F3 race runs really helped with the tyre deg because that was really my first feel for it,” he said. “The F2 has got the turbo lag. It’s another 100 kilos heavier. But the F3 test was definitely crucial to gain some experience now into how an FIA championship works.”

In the feature race, Bennett will make his first competitive pit stop while also competing in a race nearly twice as long as his GB3 outings. He said he had tried pit entries on the simulator and had practiced some pit stops in free practice on Friday.

Fittipaldi, meanwhile, participated in an IndyCar test the 19th of November at the private Thermal Club circuit in California with McLaren. He is known to harbour ambitions to join his older brother, Pietro Fittipaldi, in the premier American open-wheel series.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency