With the 2025 Formula 2 season close to reaching its conclusion, attention turns to the makeup of the grid for next year. Feeder Series breaks down everything you need to know about the 2026 driver market.

By Martin Lloyd and Calla Kra-Caskey

The headline news is of Colton Herta’s entry to the series. The IndyCar race winner returns to junior formulae for the first time since he raced in Indy Lights in 2018.

The 2026 season will be the first featuring the prize fund given by F3 to its five best-placed drivers moving up to F2 the following year. Presuming he makes the expected move to F2 with Invicta Racing, F3 champion Rafael Câmara would receive €600,000 – €300,000 from F3 and €300,000 from tyre supplier Pirelli. Martinius Stenshorne, who finished fifth in F3 in 2025, is guaranteed to receive at least €100,000 to support his graduation to F2 with Rodin Motorsport.

Invicta Racing

Invicta won both championships in 2024 and lead both again in 2025 with two rounds remaining. For 2026, the British team is expected to continue the strategy that has built their recent success by fielding an experienced F2 competitor alongside the reigning F3 champion.

Rafael Câmara is expected to follow his romp to the Formula 3 title with a move to Invicta and become the third driver in succession to sign for the team after winning the F3 championship with Trident. Câmara scored more points and more wins than either of his predecessors, Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli, and an immediate assault on the F2 title will be expected of the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy member.

Joshua Dürksen is Invicta’s prime option for the second seat. The Paraguayan has impressed in his two seasons in the series with AIX Racing, taking nine podiums including three wins, and now looks to continue his upward trajectory with one of the strongest teams on the F2 grid. 

If Dürksen isn’t at Invicta, Sebastián Montoya could also be an option for the second seat. The Colombian-American has shown fleeting pace for Prema throughout 2025 and sits 10th in the drivers’ standings with three podiums. 

Fornaroli looks set to depart the team as he searches for a professional drive after an impressive rookie year in F2. An F1 seat for 2026 looks to be out of reach, but reserve roles remain available. He also participated in the Formula E rookie test with Jaguar earlier this year. Though Roman Staněk has taken four podiums this season, including a feature race win at Spa, he is unlikely to contest a fourth season in F2. 

Hitech

Hitech’s line-up of rookies Luke Browning and Dino Beganovic has impressed, with a win apiece and a combined 13 podiums, the most of any team in the series. Despite this year’s success, Hitech are set to field an all-new lineup in 2026 featuring some of the biggest names in the series and, in a rarity for F2, two former professional racers.

Hitech appears to be the likeliest landing spot for Cadillac’s enfant chéri and F2’s highest-profile rookie in years, Colton Herta. The team’s headquarters sit just meters away from Cadillac’s new home base. Next year, Herta will balance his F2 campaign with test driver duties for Cadillac as he attempts to get the remainder of the 40 Super Licence points required for an F1 seat. 

Toyota junior Ritomo Miyata looks set to take the other Hitech seat for his third F2 season, reinforcing the team’s partnership with Toyota Gazoo Racing. The switch from ART to Hitech is a logical one for the 2023 Super Formula and Super GT champion, who has struggled in his first two years in F2, finishing 19th in 2024 and sitting 16th this year.

Browning, who is managed by Hitech team boss Oliver Oakes, looks likely to graduate from F2 and become one of Williams’ reserve drivers next year, though he is understood to have held talks with Rodin for a second F2 season. Beganovic is expected to depart the team for DAMS. 

Campos Racing

For 2025, Campos opted for a second consecutive season with an all–Red Bull junior driver lineup, but unlike last year with Isack Hadjar, this year has not yielded a drivers’ championship challenge from either of Pepe Martí and Arvid Lindblad. For 2026, the Spanish outfit is set to bring in one current and one former Red Bull junior. 

Nikola Tsolov is confirmed to be remaining with Campos to graduate to F2 after a three-year F3 career that he ended with a runner-up finish. The Red Bull junior raced for Campos when he started in single-seaters in 2022 as an Alpine affiliate. Tsolov is believed to be a preferred option of Helmut Marko’s to serve as a reserve driver for Red Bull’s F1 teams, and while there were no F2 seats open in Baku, Tsolov had considered an early graduation, Feeder Series understands.

Tsolov’s anticipated teammate is former Red Bull junior Noel León, who recently finished 17th in F3 with Prema in his second season. The Mexican driver, who finished 10th with Van Amersfoort Racing in 2024, has been spotted having conversations with the Spanish team.

Martí and Lindblad will both depart the team for pastures new. Lindblad is believed to be moving to F1 with the Racing Bulls squad despite his mixed debut season in F2 that currently puts him seventh. Martí’s future is unclear.

DAMS

DAMS had one of the most experienced lineups in F2 this season, fielding Jak Crawford and Kush Maini for their third season each. Crawford is second in the championship, just 19 points off the lead, with four wins, while Maini is currently 15th. Both, however, are expected to move on, with Maini expected to remain in the series at another team as Crawford exits junior single-seaters.

Dino Beganovic is rumored to be joining the team for 2026 from Hitech. The 21-year-old Ferrari junior already has ties to DAMS, having raced for the team when he stepped up to F2 for the final two rounds of 2024. He took a podium for them in just his third race in the series, the Abu Dhabi sprint, and will look to continue his success with a full-season return to the French unit. 

Roman Bilinski is the top contender for the other seat, with rumours about his signing emerging as early as Monza this year. Bilinski spent just one year in F3, finishing 11th for Rodin and scoring more than half of the team’s points. Prior to that, the Polish driver spent three years in FRegional Europe with Trident, although his third season was disrupted by a broken back suffered in a road accident. 

MP Motorsport

MP’s line-up have had contrasting fortunes in 2025, though Richard Verschoor’s fight for the championship has been a bright spot. Verschoor has already stated that he will move on from F2 after five years in the category, so in his stead, MP are expected to be fielding an all-German line-up for 2026 with significant prior experience at the team.

Oliver Goethe has struggled to find qualifying pace in his first full F2 season and sits 17th in the standings. It is unclear whether he will remain in the Red Bull Junior Team next season, but he should get a second chance in F2.

Alongside Goethe is likely to be Tim Tramnitz, who has competed with MP Motorsport for the last two seasons in F3. He finished ninth in 2024 in his first season as a Red Bull junior, while he was in early championship contention in 2025 before slipping to fourth in the final standings. Mari Boya, who raced for MP in various championships from 2020 to 2023 and beat Tramnitz to third in F3 this year, surfaced as another candidate for MP but is thought to be headed elsewhere.

Rodin Motorsport

Rodin have had a rollercoaster season, and Alex Dunne’s early title charge fell apart after a penalty cost him victory in Spa and collisions ended his Monza and Baku feature races. Amaury Cordeel, who replaced the initially announced Christian Mansell the week before the season started, has only scored twice. 

For 2026, Martinius Stenshorne has already been confirmed for a Rodin seat after signing over the summer. The Norwegian driver spent the past two seasons in F3, but in Baku, he replaced Max Esterson at Trident in F2. With Dunne and McLaren parting ways, Stenshorne is the Woking-based squad’s top junior driver, but his own future in the team’s development programme is uncertain. 

His teammate may be none other than Alex Dunne himself. The Irish driver had his sights set on an F1 seat with Racing Bulls, but with that deal unlikely to happen in 2026 and Dunne’s receipt of a Super Licence conditional on finishing third or higher, he is projected to spend a second season in F2 before a potential move up to the Red Bull sister squad in 2027. 

Williams junior Browning is another possibility to take the second Rodin seat. He is most likely to leave F2 and take on an F1 reserve role, but Rodin would be the most likely landing spot if he returned, and Browning has been pictured around the paddock with team personnel since the summer break. 

Cordeel seemingly departed the series after the 2024 season, but Mansell’s exit prompted his return. It appears likely that 2025 will be his last season in F2.

Prema Racing

The 2025 season has proven to be another disappointment for Prema in several series. Since the new Dallara car was introduced last year, F2’s once dominant team have struggled, and they are understood to be in dire straits financially.

There have been some bright spots thanks to Sebastián Montoya, who is expected to continue with the team for 2026 after taking three podiums during a strong mid-season spell. The son of former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has a long history with the team, who fielded him from 2020 to 2022 as well.

Alongside Montoya could be Mari Boya, who is moving on from Campos after two seasons in F3 together. After he finished 17th and 15th in 2023 and 2024 respectively, the Spaniard was transformed in his third F3 campaign, taking five podiums and finishing third in the standings.

The future plans of 13th-placed Gabriele Minì are unclear, but he is thought to be likely to leave F2 with his F1 prospects looking bleak. The Alpine junior may have more options in Formula E after he topped the Berlin rookie test in July.

ART Grand Prix

ART Grand Prix have also had a difficult 2025. Victor Martins has looked strong in qualifying, taking seven top-three finishes, but he has only managed to turn that into two podiums and 11th in the standings. Miyata snagged his first F2 podium in the Spa feature race but has otherwise struggled in his second year in European racing. 

Alpine junior Kush Maini is likely to move from DAMS to ART, switching from one of the grid’s French teams to the other. It will be his fourth season in F2 for his fourth team after he previously raced for Campos and Invicta, though he has slid down the standings each year. 

The likeliest candidate to join Maini is Laurens van Hoepen, who has raced for ART since 2022 across FR Europe and F3. This year, he finished 12th in F3 with two podiums, while in Baku, he stepped up to F2 with Trident, replacing Sami Meguetounif. 

Although Minì is likely to depart F2, ART could be a possible landing spot for the Italian driver should he return for a second season. 

Miyata is set to move to Hitech with TGR’s support, while Martins will leave F2 after three years in the series. He is likely to seek a professional drive outside the F1 ladder, with Browning more likely to become a Williams reserve. 

AIX Racing

After a promising 2024 season, AIX were expected to kick on in 2025 with Dürksen remaining the team leader, but they have slipped backwards. Dürksen has taken five podiums, but his inconsistency has limited him to 12th in the drivers’ standings as the team’s sole scorer. He will leave AIX at the end of the year, presumably for Invicta, after two years in which he helped turn the Emirati squad from backmarkers into race winners.

Though he has not scored any points this season in a difficult first F2 campaign, Cian Shields will continue with the team, as was announced last month.

Joining Shields will be Brazilian driver Emmo Fittipaldi Jr, the first F2 driver announced for 2025. The 18-year-old currently competes in Eurocup-3 for MP Motorsport, sitting 11th in the standings with one podium at Paul Ricard, and will become the first driver to graduate directly from the Spanish-based FR-level series founded in 2023. F2 could prove a big step up for the son of two-time F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi, but Dürksen has proven that drivers can jump up to AIX from the FR level and surpass expectations.

Van Amersfoort Racing

Van Amersfoort Racing have had a difficult 2025 season, although it is likely they will finish the teams’ championship in 10th, one better than their last-place finish last year.

Most of their points have come from Rafael Villagómez, who took his first F2 podium at the Barcelona sprint and a fourth place in the Monza feature race. He is expected to continue with the team next season, his fifth consecutive year with the Dutch unit his father owns. Villagómez has more than doubled his points total from last year and has improved from 24th in last year’s drivers’ standings to a provisional 14th.

The second seat is less certain, but John Bennett could also return to VAR, keeping the same line-up for a second year running. Bennett joined VAR for the last two rounds of the 2024 and took eighth in his first feature race in Lusail, but he has struggled with the transition from GB3 to F2 this year, scoring only a single point in the Monza feature race. 

Trident

Trident emerge from another disappointing F2 season in 2025 with a third full change in line-up change in three seasons, though who exactly occupies the seat is not immediately clear. Earlier this year, Sami Meguetounif and Max Esterson both stepped up from F3 but struggled to make an impression on the championship, with only the Frenchman scoring two points. They were replaced before Baku by Martinius Stenshorne and Laurens van Hoepen.

Former Campos F3 driver Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak would become Thailand’s first F2 representative since Alex Albon in 2018 if he makes the expected step up to the series with Trident. Inthraphuvasak could not keep pace with Campos teammates Tsolov and Boya in the drivers’ standings, but three wins, including leading Tsolov home for a 1-2 in the season finale, were crucial to their teams’ championship win over Trident.

The identity of the second Trident driver is unclear, and the team is believed to be in talks with several drivers to fill the seat. Charlie Wurz could be one option. The Austrian is a familiar face to the Italian team, having competed with them in F3 in 2025, though he finished a lowly 13th in the standings in his second season, well off rookie teammates Câmara and Noah Strømsted. 

Another choice could be 2024 Trident F3 driver Santiago Ramos, who was rumoured to step up to Trident’s F2 operation for 2025 before he ultimately moved to Van Amersfoort in F3. The budget limitations that kept him from finishing the 2025 season, however, might prevent him from climbing higher on the European ladder. A third potential candidate in Eurocup-3 Spanish Winter Championship winner Maciej Gladysz has since been confirmed to be joining ART in F3.

Meguetounif and Esterson are both exploring pastures new after their releases from Trident. Both have tested Indy NXT machinery at the official rookie test in recent weeks, while Esterson competed this week in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s Petit Le Mans event with GTP team JDC-Miller MotorSports. Meguetounif recently announced on social media that he would be testing ELMS machinery in Portimão later this month, while he also hinted that he could return to F2 next year.

Date	Driver	Team
9 July 2025	Emmo Fittipaldi	AIX Racing
16 September 2025	Nikola Tsolov	Campos Racing
27 September 2025	Cian Shields	AIX Racing
1 October 2025	Martinius Stenshorne	Rodin Motorsport
21 October 2025	Colton Herta	Hitech
21 October 2025	Noel León	Campos Racing
22 October 2025	Dino Beganovic	DAMS
22 October 2025	Joshua Dürksen	Invicta Racing
23 October 2025	Nicolás Varrone	Van Amersfoort Racing
28 October 2025	Rafael Câmara	Invicta Racing
18 November 2025	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak	ART Grand Prix
25 November 2025	Mari Boya	Prema Racing
25 November 2025	Roman Bilinski	DAMS
3 December 2025	Sebastián Montoya	Prema Racing
4 December 2025	Oliver Goethe	MP Motorsport
8 December 2025	Alex Dunne	Rodin Motorsport
8 December 2025	Ritomo Miyata	Hitech
8 December 2025	Laurens van Hoepen	Trident
8 December 2025	Gabriele Minì	MP Motorsport
9 December 2025	John Bennett	Trident
9 December 2025	Kush Maini	ART Grand Prix

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency