In the round-up: Trident has confirmed its two drivers for the 2021 Formula 2 season, leaving all bar one of the 22 seats filled.
Sato and Viscaal to drive for Trident
Marino Sato will continue for a second season of Formula 2 at Trident, who he joined after winning the Euroformula Open series in 2019. His team mate will be 2018 Euroformula runner-up Bent Viscaal, who finished 13th in Formula 3 with MP last year, scoring a single win in the 10th round of the series at Silverstone.“We had Bent with us for one day of testing last December in Bahrain,” said Trident team manager Giacomo Ricci, “and we had the chance to appreciate his speed skills multiple times. We remember the win he snatched from our driver [Lirim] Zendeli last July at Silverstone in the Formula 3 championship. We are convinced we will be able to reach great results together, and we will provide him with our best support to help him to find his fit with our family as quickly as possible.”
Trident’s announcement leaves MP as the only team yet to confirm its line-up. Zendeli, who is also stepping up from Formula 3, is their only confirmed driver so far. The season begins on March 27th in Bahrain.
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| Team | Car | Driver |
|---|---|---|
| ART | 1 | Theo Pourchaire |
| ART | 2 | Christian Lundgaard |
| Campos | 1 | Ralph Boschung |
| Campos | 2 | Gianluca Petecof |
| Carlin | 1 | Jehan Daruvala |
| Carlin | 2 | Dan Ticktum |
| Charouz | 1 | Guilherme Samaia |
| Charouz | 2 | David Beckmann |
| DAMS | 1 | Marcus Armstrong |
| DAMS | 2 | Roy Nissany |
| Hitech | 1 | Liam Lawson |
| Hitech | 2 | Juri Vips |
| HWA | 1 | Matteo Nannini |
| HWA | 2 | Alessio Deledda |
| MP | 1 | Lirim Zendeli |
| MP | 2 | TBC |
| Prema | 1 | Robert Shwartzman |
| Prema | 2 | Oscar Piastri |
| Trident | 1 | Marino Sato |
| Trident | 2 | Bent Viscaal |
| Virtuosi | 1 | Felipe Drugovich |
| Virtuosi | 2 | Guanyu Zhou |
Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
And while our friend @alo_oficial can’t physically be with us, rest assured he is paying close attention!
See you soon Fernando 👋#A521Launch pic.twitter.com/kCvzaRNjqL
— Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) March 1, 2021
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
'I'm not proud of it' - Mazepin talks for first time after controversial video (ESPN)
"When asked what steps he has taken to educate himself, Mazepin replied: 'I totally understand they are correct in their feelings and that I was not correct with my actions. I'm not proud of it.'"
Vettel fully motivated and fitting in well at Aston Martin (Reuters)
"I can attest to the fact that he’s really motivated. But I don’t think the motivation is to prove the nay-sayers wrong. I think it’s just how he is. I think he’s just driven to do the best he can."
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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Comment of the day
Does modern IndyCar racing need to be less of a ‘single-spec’ series?
I still think it’s a shame IndyCar is so much more spec and restricted now than it used to be in the CART heyday where it was so much more interesting.
The current IndyCar may be more competitive than in the CART days but I feel it’s so much less interesting in every other regard and overall it’s quite a bit less exciting as it’s missing much of what made the series so thrilling and spectacular back then.
Seeing a field featuring a dozen different looking chassis was just more interesting visually and that on top of individual teams doing there own tweaks and development added that bit of extra to follow on the technical side. And with engine development a bit more open, tyre competition and things it was a series that was almost as interesting as F1 on the technical side as you could follow those developments race to race just as you do in F1.
And of course the performance of those cars was much more impressive and I think they were up to 900bhp before CART became ChampCar and went to the de-tuned spec Cosworth in 2003.
And to be clear I’m not saying that the current IndyCar is bad, Just that it is significantly less interesting/exciting than it was before Tony George went on his power trip and ruined it with the split. I’m sure those that only know it the way it’s been think it’s great but those who remember what it was in the CART days are likely to be more down on it because it simply isn’t as good as it was in any regard. Hence why it’s way less popular now compared to what it used to be.
@Roger-Ayles
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Kaushal and Royal-Spark!
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@HoHum (@hohum)
2nd March 2021, 2:10
@roger-ayles, Worthy COTD. Also totally relevant to F1, as it is and was.
Robbie (@robbie)
2nd March 2021, 6:19
Yeah have to agree fully with the cotd of @roger-ayles as well.
Darran
2nd March 2021, 8:50
Take out Indycar and say F1 and the COTD is just as relevant. Why has there been no great designers stand out since Newey in the early 90s? Well the car design rules are so ridged F1 looks like a spec series
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
2nd March 2021, 12:00
I wonder how much of that is down to how a lot of the categories outside of F1 have gone towards been spec over the past 20+ as a lot of the great designers tended to get started working on cars in some of those categories.
With Dallara basically having a monopoly on most of the open wheel categories outside of F1 now with most also moving towards spec designs which teams can’t develop & with limited setup tweaking allowed I imagine it’s harder for people to get noticed when they don’t have opportunities to design or develop cars.
I know that some teams run competitions & things where they will ask people to send in design ideas & stuff but even the smartest of those won’t be getting the real world experience at designing, Building & working on cars in the way many from the past did.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
2nd March 2021, 4:22
Read the espn article… Nate Saunders I don’t know how you do it, how you write an article like that, must be tough, reads like something that has to go through censorship.
I’m starting to like this Mazepin fella, he knows some people just want to dislike him and he wants to annoy them by doing well on track.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
2nd March 2021, 8:50
@peartree Given that he’s injured people in the past through his driving and his unwarranted boxing, I’m not sure if I’ll be a fan unless I actually see genuine change and remorse.
Dave
2nd March 2021, 8:59
I’d regret everything what I did if I was him.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
2nd March 2021, 23:50
@wsrgo thankfully I’m not Ilott.
Bippy
2nd March 2021, 9:33
I must confess that other than his questionable antics on the racetrack, I have no strong feelings about Mazepin. What I will say regarding his antics off track is this…thank the Lord that video phones didn’t exist when I was his age. I suspect that, like myself, a good few older people on here would have to apologise for some pretty stupid stuff!
Aapje (@aapje)
2nd March 2021, 17:46
Happy to see that Fernando’s face has the right side up. Not seeing any serious damage.