Last week, Formula 3 introduced a prize fund of €1 million to be split among the top five drivers who step up from F3 to F2. Bruno Michel, the chief executive of the series’ promoter Formula Motorsport Limited, spoke to Feeder Series and selected media following the announcement. 

By Calla Kra-Caskey

The top eligible F3 driver, ostensibly the champion, receives €300,000 from the purse, with driver shares decreasing by €50,000 per place finished down to €100,000 for the fifth driver in line.

The prize is only available for drivers who are stepping up to F2. If a driver in the top five positions in the F3 standings chooses to remain in F3 for another year or proceed to a different series, their prize money will go to the next-highest-finishing driver. 

It’s the first year F3 itself will offer this prize, which comes in addition to the grant – increased from €200,000 to €300,000 in 2020 – that Pirelli has provided the third-tier series’ best-finishing driver graduating to F2 or GP2 since 2012. Money from F3’s new prize pool will be disbursed to the top five eligible drivers from 2025, meaning champion Rafael Câmara should receive a total of €600,000 from Pirelli and F3 combined upon his expected graduation to F2 next year.

“I cannot say that it was something that we were forced to do because, at the end of the day, finding drivers for Formula 2 has not been an issue for the last two seasons,” Michel told Feeder Series. “I didn’t feel that there was a massive need to help the drivers because they could not finance their seat in Formula 2.

“On the other hand, I think it’s quite fair to do that and I think it’s quite fair to encourage the pyramid. The fact that we are helping F3 drivers to go to Formula 2 is something that is quite natural. Maybe we could have done it earlier, but at least we’ve done it this year and we’ll do it for a long time.”

F2 has never failed to produce a full grid, and as Michel says, the series itself isn’t obliged to provide young drivers money to step up. But it’s also the case that funding constraints have forced many talented drivers to choose between a second season in F3 or a single season without adequate preparation in F2, as Alex Dunne and Paul Aron have both publicly discussed in recent years.’

Like most single-seater series, F2 has become increasingly expensive in recent years. At the top level, even the least expensive seats cost upward of €1 million – the sum of F3’s new prize pool.

“You can always do more; you can always do less,” he said. “The idea is to do it as it is. Of course, it’s not going to finance a full season in F2. There’s no doubt about that. 

“Even with the first driver, if you add up what he’s already getting as a prize fund from Pirelli plus what this prize fund will give to him, it’s going to be €600,000, which is already a good amount of money. 

“It’s true for the driver that’s P5 in the championship, €100,000 is not going to finance a full season of F2, but it’s already a help. The drivers need to find money and generally find money from several sources and not only from one. [The new fund] will be one of them.” 

Series that, as Michel put it, ‘do more’ include F1 Academy, which provides its champion with funding for a seat and testing in a Formula Regional–level series. Winners Marta Garcia and Abbi Pulling won a season in FRegional Europe and GB3 respectively, both of which cost upwards of €300,000, the amount of the F3 winner’s prize from the series. 

On the IndyCar junior ladder, the champion of Indy NXT gets $850,000 US, funding testing as well as entries for the Indianapolis 500 and an additional race. Could F2 and F3 ever do something like that? 

“What we’ve done, which maybe we did not communicate enough on it, is that the winner of F3 is always having quite an extensive testing campaign with us on the F3 car to do additional development after the season is finished,” Michel said. “We already had a couple of tests with Câmara this year, like we had in the past with the winners, so it’s something that we’re doing. 

“On the other hand, I don’t think it would be fair to allow a driver who’s going to compete in F2 to have access to an F2 car where the others don’t before the start of the season, so that’s why we’re not offering this possibility.”

As for drivers testing F1 machinery after winning F2, Michel says it’s out of his hands. 

“Between F2 and F1 is a completely different thing,” he explained. “A lot of them are part of F1 teams and they are doing FP1 or they are doing a test of a former car. There are many ways for them to be able to be at the wheel of an F1 car, and the teams are doing that because it’s in their interest. And that’s something we don’t regulate at all.”

Indeed, current F2 drivers Dino Beganovic, Arvid Lindblad, Luke Browning and Victor Martins have all participated in both FP1 and additional testing for the F1 teams to which they’re respectively connected. Dunne had done the same for McLaren before his split from the team announced earlier this week.

Additional opportunities to test F1 machinery have come through the Silverstone Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award, most recently won by 2024 British F4 champion and current GB3 driver Deagen Fairclough, although the prize is paused this year. 

Additional reporting by Martin Lloyd

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency