Formula 2 veteran Richard Verschoor sat down with Feeder Series to discuss his move last month from Trident to MP Motorsport and detailed how he rose from 13th to an unexpected third place in the season finale in Abu Dhabi on an alternative tyre strategy.

By Michael McClure

Verschoor returned to MP Motorsport, his team for much of the 2021 season, in November for the final two rounds of F2’s 2024 season after driving the first 12 rounds with Trident. The announcement of the team change also confirmed his place at the Dutch outfit for the 2025 F2 season.

But at one point between his feature race victory with Trident in Baku in September – his last race with the team – and returning to MP’s F2 team after three years away, Verschoor said he thought his four-year F2 career was over.

“After Baku, to be honest, I thought I was done, at least for this season,” he explained to Feeder Series. “Of course, there were doubts already for the next season, but I think a few weeks before the round in Qatar, I got a call – or a message, actually – and we [Verschoor and MP] started speaking. And then we managed to make it work. [I’m] very happy because I think it’s a good preparation for the 2025 season.”

Verschoor’s involvement with MP dates back nearly a decade to when he first moved to single-seaters. He began racing with the team in 2016 and won the inaugural Spanish F4 Championship title that year with 18 victories from 20 races. He also won the second edition of the SMP F4 Championship the same year.

He remained on MP’s books for the next five years as he moved up through FRenault Eurocup, F3 and finally F2 in 2021. During that ascent, he also won the 2019 Macau Grand Prix with MP and, racing with M2 Competition, finished third and second respectively in the 2017 and 2018 editions of the Toyota Racing Series.

Verschoor had to end his rookie F2 season with MP two rounds early after hitting financial trouble. When he returned to MP three years later, he had become F2’s most experienced driver, adding 81 starts to his name with Charouz Racing System, Trident and Van Amersfoort Racing in the meantime. Finding additional sponsorship helped alleviate some of his budgetary issues.

“I’ve been with MP for a while, starting my formula career, and I’ve had a lot of nice moments with them,” he said. “I never expected we would be back after leaving them in 2021, but I always wanted to because I have always felt good in this environment. I know the team is at an extremely high level right now and [I’m] very happy and proud to be part of it now.”

In conversation with Feeder Series on Thursday in Abu Dhabi, Verschoor said he aimed for “a consistent partnership” and more podiums with MP going forward while adding that he would “have to get used a bit of a different driving style” at his new team.

But after qualifying 14th on Friday, he didn’t expect to add another rostrum appearance to the sprint race podium he scored on his return to the MP fold in Qatar.

On Sunday, he inherited a place on the grid for the feature race after Antonelli’s withdrawal due to illness and moved up to 10th before the pit stop cycle began. While running the alternate prime-option strategy, Verschoor rose to second on track before passing Pepe Martí for the race lead into Turn 6 on lap 18 of 33.

The Dutchman pulled out a nearly nine-second lead over Martí before the Spaniard pitted on lap 26. More importantly, after his own stop on lap 27, Verschoor was in a net fifth place, only 11.5 seconds behind Dürksen.

On fresh supersoft tyres, Verschoor overtook Ollie Bearman on lap 30 into Turn 6 before scything past polesitter Victor Martins for the final spot on the podium on the final lap. He brought the car home third, 5.370 seconds behind race winner Joshua Dürksen, in a result that he said he did not expect beforehand.

“Our main target was to finish top three in the teams’ championship for MP,” Verschoor told Feeder Series in the paddock after the feature race. “That’s also why we split the strategy. In the end, it turned out to be a good one. I think to be honest, with the pace we had today, either would have worked for us because we were literally flying.”

“Where we made the race was on the harder one, on the medium tyre. We just had super good pace,” he added. “And then on the supersofts, the advantage was very big.”

The third-place finish and additional fastest lap point lifted him to eighth in the drivers’ championship standings, his best placement in F2. That points haul, along with teammate Oliver Goethe’s ninth-place finish on the regular strategy, also helped MP Motorsport secure third in the teams’ standings by 18.5 points over Hitech GP.

Verschoor had already added two points to his and the team’s tallies after finishing the sprint race on Saturday seventh.

In the last six F2 rounds of 2024, Verschoor recorded a series-high six podiums, more than champion Gabriel Bortoleto’s five in the same span of time. He also lost an on-track sprint race victory at round nine in Hungary to a disqualification for having a rear plank that was below the minimum required thickness.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency