Formula 2 returns for its 10th season under its current name with one new circuit and half the grid competing in their first full campaign. Will Rafael Câmara be the third successive F3 champion to win with Invicta Racing as a rookie? How quickly can Colton Herta adjust? In this guide, Feeder Series tells you everything you need to know about the 2026 F2 season. 

By Martin Lloyd and August Bamford

Heading into 2025, one question was being asked. Was 2024 a blip, an annus horribilis for the traditional top two teams of Prema and ART, or was it a sign of a more permanent change? Invicta answered this question emphatically, romping to a second double title win, while Prema and ART languished in sixth and eighth. The guard has changed, and Invicta are the red-hot favourites for both championships for a second successive season. 

They will be challenged by the ever-present Campos, who field F3 runner-up Nikola Tsolov, and Hitech, who have IndyCar race winner Colton Herta on their books. The American stunningly swapped professional racing for junior single-seaters over the winter as he looks to gain enough super licence points to race in F1 in 2027. Nicolás Varrone is another series switcher, moving from the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship to compete with Van Amersfoort Racing.

Each of these newcomers provides compelling storylines, though there is a sizeable class of returning drivers too. Alex Dunne and Dino Beganovic are the pick of the bunch, having switched to a new F1 driver academy and a new F2 team respectively. Gabriele Minì will also be looking to bounce back from a tough 2025, while Kush Maini, the most experienced driver in the field, will be racing for his fourth different team in four seasons.

Calendar

The schedule consists of 14 rounds, with a more balanced calendar than 2025. Previously, there were three consecutive weekends of racing through Imola, Monaco and Barcelona, with nearly month-long gaps on either side. The Emilia-Romagna round has now been replaced by a September street race in Madrid, at the as-yet-unfinished Madring, and the triple weekend cut to two. 

This change means that the halfway point of the season will now come after the Silverstone round in July. The Monaco and Barcelona rounds have also both been shifted back by two weeks, with the Spa and Hungaroring events brought forward by a week each respectively, condensing the summer season into an intense period with three pairs of back-to-back rounds in eight weekends. Finally, the Baku event will run from Thursday to Saturday to allow for Azerbaijan’s national holiday on Sunday 27 September.

• Round 1: Albert Park (6–8 March)
• Round 2: Bahrain International Circuit (10–12 April)
• Round 3: Jeddah Corniche Circuit (17–19 April)
• Round 4: Circuit de Monaco (4–7 June)
• Round 5: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (12–14 June)
• Round 6: Red Bull Ring (26–28 June)
• Round 7: Silverstone Circuit (3–5 July)
• Round 8: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (17–19 July)
• Round 9: Hungaroring (24–26 July)
• Round 10: Autodromo Nazionale Monza (4–6 September)
• Round 11: Madring (11–13 September)
• Round 12: Baku City Circuit (24–26 September)
• Round 13: Lusail International Circuit (27–29 November)
• Round 14: Yas Marina Circuit (4–6 December)

Format

The series’ format remains unchanged for 2026. On Friday, a 45-minute practice session will be followed by a 30-minute qualifying session. The only exception to this is at Monaco, where practice will take place on a Thursday. On Friday in the Principality, the field will be split into two groups of 11 for two 16-minute qualifying sessions to prevent the tight and twisty track from becoming too crowded for drivers to set flying laps safely. Further details regarding the F2 and F3 group qualifying format can be found here.

The first race of the weekend will be a sprint race on Saturday. The lap count will be decided by whichever comes first out of 45 minutes or 120 kilometres. Sunday’s feature race is a longer event with a mandatory pit stop, with a time limit of 60 minutes and distance of 170 kilometres. The two races in Monaco run to 100 kilometres and 140 kilometres respectively, while Budapest’s feature race is 160 kilometres long.

The sprint race winner will earn 10 points, with points then awarded down to eighth place. The feature race winner takes 25 points, with points scored down to 10th place following the standard FIA points format. Two points are awarded for pole position, while there is also one point given to the top 10 finisher who sets the fastest lap. In a change from 2025, unserved time penalties will now be converted into grid penalties for the feature race. Previously, they would be applied to the sprint race.

Where to watch

Coverage of F2 is dependent on your region. The F2 website outlines which networks will broadcast coverage in each country. Additionally, in some countries, coverage of F2 will be available on F1TV. Details of F1TV’s availability in each country can be found here.

Teams and drivers

Invicta Racing

Since the introduction of the Dallara F2 2024 car two seasons ago, Invicta Racing have established themselves as the pre-eminent F2 team. Last year, Leonardo Fornaroli followed up Gabriel Bortoleto’s 2024 championship success with a first-year drivers’ title win of his own, with the Norfolk-based squad also winning the teams’ championship for a second successive season. For 2026, Invicta have brought their third all-new line-up in as many years as they attempt to take a third consecutive double championship win. That’s a feat that no second-tier team has achieved since the inception of GP2 in 2005.

Rafael Câmara (#1) enters the season as one of the title favourites. The 20-year-old Brazilian has become the latest driver to win the F3 title with Trident and move to Invicta the year after, following the path of Bortoleto and Fornaroli. The 2024 FRegional Europe champion will carry high expectations for his debut season. Câmara may not yet have the F2 pedigree of his teammate, but he will be expected to win the intra-team battle and fight for the championship.

On the other side of the garage, Joshua Dürksen (#2) is stepping up from two years at the AIX Racing team. In both seasons, he led the German-Emirati effort superbly, scoring 194 of the team’s 212 points in that time. This year, with significant F2 experience under his belt and one of the most competitive packages in the series at his disposal, the expectations will change completely for the 22-year-old Paraguayan. He has also joined Mercedes for 2026 as a development driver, becoming the only Silver Arrows–affiliated driver in F2 and F3. 

Hitech

Hitech came close securing their first F2 teams’ championship in 2025, finishing runners-up to Invicta after what was unquestionably their strongest season in the category to date. Thirteen podium finishes across the campaign underlined a year of consistency and growth, with both Luke Browning and Dino Beganovic fighting deep into the season to keep second away from rivals Campos. Browning’s own title bid faded in the closing rounds, but the team’s progress was undeniable. For 2026, Hitech have high expectations for their all-new driver line-up in 2026 as they look to take the final step from contenders to champions.

Japanese driver Ritomo Miyata (#3) begins his third F2 season with a third different team. It was a difficult 2025 season for the Toyota-backed driver. Outside of his first podium at Spa-Francorchamps, he rarely featured in the fight at the front. However, the 26-year-old’s results in Japan, where he claimed the 2023 Super Formula and Super GT titles, underline the pedigree he brings to the grid. Improving qualifying will be critical if he is to become a regular frontrunner and fight for his first F2 victory.

Alongside him, 25-year-old Colton Herta (#4) makes his F2 debut as a proven professional race winner with seven seasons and nine wins in IndyCar, plus two class wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona in IMSA SportsCar competition. The key for the Cadillac-backed American will be adaptation. Herta’s ability to translate his experience to unfamiliar circuits and tyres will likely define both his season and Hitech’s prospects in 2026.

Campos Racing

Last season, Campos Racing hoped to fight for the drivers’ and teams’ championships that they so narrowly missed out on in 2024. With only one feature race win to their name, however, they could only manage third in the final standings. The team is another to present a fully refreshed line-up for 2026, with Arvid Lindblad and Pepe Martí graduating to Racing Bulls in F1 and Kiro Race Co in Formula E respectively.

Noel León (#5) is the first driver not part of the Red Bull Junior Team to join Campos’ F2 operation since 2023, though he was part of the programme in 2022. The Mexican driver has spent the last two seasons in F3, competing first with Van Amersfoort Racing and then with Prema Racing, with whom he finished 17th last year. This year represents a fresh start for the 21-year-old, who will hope to rediscover the performance levels that brought him the 2023 Euroformula Open title and third place at the 2024 Macau Grand Prix.

Nikola Tsolov (#6) continues with Campos, having played a key part in their 2025 F3 teams’ championship success. His move to the team after two years at ART brought much greater success, with his 124-point 2025 haul eclipsing his combined total of 81 from 2023 and 2024. The 19-year-old Bulgarian finished second in the drivers’ standings, 42 points behind champion Câmara, in his third season of F3 competition. He ended the year by competing in the last two rounds of F2 in 2025 with Campos in place of the Formula E–bound Martí, claiming his maiden series podium with third place in the sprint at Yas Marina. 

DAMS

DAMS enter the 2026 season at something of a crossroads. The French outfit have consistently produced standout individual performances, placing at least one driver inside the top five of the drivers’ championship in each of the past four seasons. Yet not since their championship-winning campaign in 2019 have they finished inside the top three of the teams’ standings. Victory itself was not the issue for DAMS in 2025, as they matched eventual champions Invicta with five race wins across the season. The problem lay in consistency. A lack of regular podium finishes and four completely scoreless rounds ultimately cost their campaign. Their top driver Jak Crawford departs for an F1 reserve role with Aston Martin, leaving the French team to turn the page with an entirely new line-up.

Dino Beganovic (#7) is expected to be the cornerstone of DAMS’ rebuild. The 22-year-old Swede turned a difficult start to 2025 into a late-season surge, scoring points in 10 of the final 11 races to finish seventh with 116 points. The Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy member is no stranger to DAMS machinery either, having contested the final two rounds of 2024 with the team and impressed with a sprint podium in Abu Dhabi in just his third F2 start. A championship challenge is firmly on the cards if he can carry forward his momentum from the end of 2025. 

Alongside him, 22-year-old rookie Roman Bilinski (#8) joins the team after being Rodin Motorsport’s leading scorer in F3, collecting 65 points and delivering the team’s only victory of the season at Monza. DAMS will be hoping the Polish driver’s upwards trajectory continues after he already overcame a serious back injury that sidelined him for nearly half of his 2024 FR Europe campaign.

MP Motorsport

After a mixed 2025 season, MP Motorsport have opted for an experienced pair for 2026. The Dutch outfit lost team leader Richard Verschoor, who departed F2 after five years to join Duqueine Team in the European Le Mans Series. The Dutchman finished third in the drivers’ standings, but teammate Oliver Goethe could only manage 15th, meaning that they finished in fifth in the teams’ standings. 

To replace Verschoor, MP have signed Alpine Academy member Gabriele Minì (#9). Having almost won the F3 title with Prema in 2024, the 20-year-old stuck with the Italian team in 2025 but struggled to achieve consistent results and finished only 13th in the drivers’ standings. While Minì has remained in the Alpine programme, he has left Prema as he looks to rediscover the title-winning form he showed when he burst onto the scene with his 2020 Italian F4 title win in his home series. He made his fourth appearance in a rookie-orientated Formula E session in January when he participated in free practice zero with Nissan at the Miami E-Prix.

Meanwhile, Oliver Goethe (#10) has remained with the team after his difficult 2025 campaign. The 21-year-old German driver showed flashes of potential throughout the season, including through fourth-place finishes in the sprints at Bahrain and Spa. This season provides Goethe, who left the Red Bull Junior Team over the winter, with a clean slate to show his ability more regularly. He has won races in F3 but rarely made the step to competing for titles, with his 2022 Euroformula Open success proving the exception rather than the rule.

Prema Racing

Sixth place in the 2025 teams’ championship represented unfamiliar territory for Prema Racing. Long regarded as the benchmark of the junior single-seater ladder, the Italian squad endured a season that fell well short of their traditional standards. A campaign without a victory marked a rare low point, though there were signs of resilience. Both Sebastián Montoya and Gabriele Minì secured three podium finishes apiece, suggesting the team retained flashes of competitiveness. Prema’s objective for 2026 is to reset, rebuild momentum and reassert themselves at the front of F2 following a period of internal change that saw the Rosin family – founders of the team in 1983 – resign ahead of the season.

Sebastián Montoya (#11) returns to lead Prema’s effort in 2026. The 20-year-old Colombian’s rookie season in 2025 quickly evolved from a year of adaptation to a display of competitiveness, with Prema impressed by how he adjusted to F2 machinery and established himself in a tightly packed midfield. He finished 12th with 91 points, gathering momentum through the early European rounds by climbing from the pit lane to eighth at Imola, taking his maiden podium with third in Monaco, and then improving to second in the subsequent feature race in Barcelona.

Joining him is 21-year-old rookie Mari Boya (#12), who arrives in F2 after three seasons in F3. The Spaniard enjoyed a breakout 2025 campaign in which he finished third with 116 points, scoring in eight of the last 10 races and taking a standout victory at Silverstone in wet conditions. He ended the year by finishing second in the Macau Grand Prix as part of a Pinnacle Motorsport 1-2. Now part of the Aston Martin Driver Academy, Boya is expected to help restore Prema to their customary position among the championship’s leading contenders.

Rodin Motorsport

Despite their mid-table championship position, Rodin Motorsport often produced one of the fastest car packages of the 2025 campaign. The British team challenged for the drivers’ title for much of the season with Alex Dunne, whose penchant for incidents and inconsistent form limited him to fifth place in the final standings. Teammate Amaury Cordeel only scored three points in his fourth season in the championship, and he has left the series to race in GT World Challenge Europe with Team WRT.

Martinius Stenshorne (#14) replaced Cordeel for the final two rounds of the season, and the 20-year-old Norwegian will remain with the team for 2026. Stenshorne finished fifth in the final F3 standings before he first stepped up to F2 with Trident in Baku. He immediately made a positive impression, qualifying seventh and running in the top four of both races, before he moved to Rodin. For 2026, Stenshorne will look to build on his Baku showing, working with established team leader Dunne to return Rodin to the upper echelon of the teams’ standings. Over the winter, he left the McLaren Driver Development Programme and will not be backed by them for the first time since early 2024.

Alex Dunne (#15) enters the season as the highest-placed returning driver from 2025 and one of the title favourites for 2026. Last season, the 20-year-old Irishman’s searing pace was often masked by the series of incidents that derailed his fledgling title challenge. This season, he will need to reduce his retirement count of five, the highest of any driver in the top 10 of the drivers’ standings, but the new Alpine Academy member will surely be a tough driver to beat if he does so. Having taken part in two F1 free practice one sessions before he left McLaren in 2025, Dunne is rumoured to be taking part in further sessions with his new team this F1 season. He also participated in the Formula E rookie test with McLaren in Berlin last July.

ART Grand Prix

The 2025 season proved to be one of the most difficult campaigns in ART Grand Prix’s long and successful F2 history. Over one lap, ART often looked like frontrunners, especially with Victor Martins, who regularly qualified on the front two rows. Translating that qualifying performance into podium finishes and reliable points, however, became a recurring struggle. Martins accounted for three of the team’s four podiums across the year, while teammate Ritomo Miyata endured a more uneven campaign, contributing just one podium in Spa. Yet following the team’s sole victory of the season in Qatar with Martins, a renewed sense of momentum appeared to emerge, something ART hope to carry into 2026 with an entirely new line-up.

Leading ART’s reset is 25-year-old Kush Maini (#16), who enters his fourth F2 season after moving on from DAMS and who brings valuable experience and technical insight with him. The Alpine Academy driver also serves as a reserve driver for Mahindra Racing in Formula E. Expectations in F2 were high in 2025, but extended points droughts, costly incidents and penalties – including a misjudged clash with Amaury Cordeel in Baku – saw him finish only 16th with 32 points. Still, the Indian claimed a sprint race victory at Monaco, showing the race management and composure ART will hope to harness in 2026.

Alongside him, 20-year-old Thai rookie Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak (#17) joins from Campos Racing after an impressive F3 season in which he won three races and helped secure them the teams’ championship while finishing seventh in the standings himself. He was also the only driver to run every racing lap of the season. Inthraphuvasak gained his first F2 experience at the Abu Dhabi finale and also added to his résumé with an appearance at the Macau Grand Prix. ART will hope his rise from 24th in 2024 to seventh in 2025 signifies momentum he can build upon in his debut F2 campaign, and he has already begun to integrate with the team by racing with them at the FR Middle East finale at Qatar last month.

AIX Racing

AIX Racing head into a new era in 2026, having lost their talismanic team leader, Dürksen, to Invicta. The Paraguayan will be difficult to replace given his aforementioned points record for the team, but AIX have stuck with a tried-and-tested method to fill his place. Dürksen was an FR Europe driver when AIX signed him, and the team opted to search that level again, signing a 2025 Eurocup-3 driver to partner their returning challenger.

That Eurocup-3 driver is Emmo Fittpaldi Jr. (#20), who finished 11th in the series last season with MP. That was a disappointing campaign for the 18-year-old Brazilian-American after he had finished fifth in 2024 and sixth in the Eurocup-3 Spanish Winter Championship in between. His only podium of the main season in 2025 came with third place at Le Castellet, and he will hope that a change of series provides an upturn in results. Fittipaldi’s nephew, Enzo Fittipaldi, competed in the series from 2021 to 2024, spending the first two seasons at AIX’s predecessor entity, Charouz Racing System.

Partnering Fittpaldi will be Cian Shields (#21), who endured a difficult debut season in the series. The Scotsman failed to score a point, claiming a best finish of 11th in the feature race at Imola. With a year of experience under his belt and familiar surroundings, Shields – who turns 21 on Saturday, the same day his teammate turns 19 – will hope for a change of fortunes in 2026 as he seeks his first single-seater points since 2023. He also has an affiliation with Aston Martin and has participated in F1’s free practice one at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with the British team.

Van Amersfoort Racing

Van Amersfoort Racing enter 2026 encouraged by the trajectory of their 2025 campaign. While a 10th-place finish in the teams’ championship may not immediately stand out on paper, the Dutch squad showed clear signs of progress as the season unfolded. Much of that confidence stems from continuity and development on Rafael Villagómez’s side of the garage, and he now partners one of the grid’s most intriguing newcomers at the team helmed by former F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer, who took over from Rob Niessink as chief executive officer last month.

Nicolás Varrone (#22) arrives in F2 with a reputation as a sportscar standout, having claimed a World Endurance Championship LMGTE Am drivers’ title as well as class victories at both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona. In 2025, he added to his credentials with a podium finish in IMSA’s GTD Pro class at Petit Le Mans. Earlier financial limitations halted the Argentine’s initial single-seater progression following a stint in British F3, now GB3, back in 2019 and 2020. But the 25-year-old’s rise through endurance racing, culminating at the Hypercar level last year with Proton Competition, has showcased his remarkable adaptability, which will be much needed for F2 in 2026.

Alongside him, 24-year-old Rafael Villagómez (#23) continues with VAR, the team owned by his father, for a sixth consecutive year across Euroformula Open, F3 and F2. After a challenging 2024, the Mexican driver showed clear progress in 2025, finishing on the podium twice – including after a charge from 22nd to third in Barcelona – and scoring points in each of the final four rounds. Having finished 14th with 43 points, Villagómez will look to convert flashes of race pace into sustained competitiveness and stronger qualifying form in 2026.

Unusually for F2, the team have also appointed a reserve driver, Ricco Shlaimoun, who most recently raced single-seaters in FR Americas in 2024. The 23-year-old American took two podiums in his sole competitive racing appearance last year, which came in the GT4 class of the GT America series’ Long Beach round. His inclusion reflects a longer-term plan, with the position designed to integrate him into the team and prepare him for a proposed full-time F2 race seat in 2027.

Trident

Trident continued to struggle in 2025, contrasting strongly with their stellar recent F3 efforts. The Italian team only scored two points all season through a pair of 10th-place finishes for Sami Meguetounif, making it their worst season in 20 years of second-tier competition. The only way for Trident, therefore, is up.

Laurens van Hoepen (#24) continues with the team, having completed the final three rounds of 2025 with them. The 20-year-old Dutchman had raced for the last four years in FR Europe and F3 with ART. In F3, he finished on the podium five times across two campaigns, each being second- or third-place finishes in sprint races. Having finished 12th last season, he stepped up to F2 from the Baku round onwards and achieved a best finish of 14th in the sprint at Yas Marina. 

John Bennett (#25) switches to Trident after a difficult rookie season with Van Amersfoort. The 22-year-old British driver only scored one point for the Dutch team and could not match the occasional podium-scoring feats of teammate Villagómez. Bennett’s Friday form limited his ability to perform on Saturday and Sunday, as he only qualified in the top 10 once, at Spielberg. Having swapped orange for navy in 2026, the 2024 GB3 runner-up will hope that a change of scenery brings improved results. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency