Street races and triple-headers offer new challenges for F2’s 2021 contenders

8 comments on “Street races and triple-headers offer new challenges for F2’s 2021 contenders”

1. 

   Jere (@jerejj)
   24th March 2021, 10:47

   The RB-backed drivers are the ones I’m going to keep an eye on the most, although the weekend format changes unnecessarily penalize success, even more than the previous one. Since being fastest in QLF won’t matter apart from the four bonus points, a better way of determining the grid would be to pick each driver’s name from a hat or a bucket. The starting order would be the order in which names got picked up.
   1. 

      S
      24th March 2021, 12:22

      @jerejj Being fastest in qualifying gives them:
      A) A top 10 start in Sprint 1.
      B) If they stay in 10th, they get the pole for Sprint 2.
      C) Pole for the feature race. And,
      D) Points for qualifying.
      How does that not matter?

      Keeping in mind that F2 is primarily a drivers championship – the greater the challenge they face, the better they can show their talents.
      And for us viewers – the greater the challenges, the better we can appreciate the racing, skills and entertainment.

      Personally, I’d love to see F1 do this a few times. Make it interesting.
      1. 

         Jere (@jerejj)
         24th March 2021, 14:40

         @S Unnecessarily complicated too.
         1. 

            S
            24th March 2021, 15:06

            Everything in life is
2. 

   Robert Mckay
   24th March 2021, 10:56

   It’d be ironic if the accident damage bills from three races per weekend on mainly street courses outweighed any savings made from the calendar changes, but hey.

   I think rather than three races I might have preferred them to make qualifying a proper F2 event and do it in the same knockout format as F1.
3. 

   cduk_mugello (@cduk_mugello)
   24th March 2021, 11:01

   Way to devalue the championship. It just has a bit of a Formula E feel to it. Lots of street tracks and 2 months between race meets.

   To be honest I can deal with the occasional street circuit, it’s the gaps between races that really ruins the championship for me. 2 month gap here, 1 month gap there, then BOOM 6 races in 8 days at the end. I really struggle getting interested in a championship that’s so spread out, A1GP taught me that.

   I’ll probably still watch it (to begin with) but I can’t see this ending well.
4. 

   Jockey Ewing
   24th March 2021, 14:52

   Monaco feels to be a better track for F3, than for F2. While Spa is likely would be better as a track for F2, than for F3.
   I guess F2 races pretty well at faster street circuits, but I see no point in taking F3 to the fastest GP circuits, apart from taking almost all corners at full throttle is funny.

   “S” said rational things above, as a reasoning of his opinion, or at least came up with the likely close to optimal strategy.
   While changes around F1 often were reasoned with reasons like this : “it’s too complex, fans just do not understand it”, like the naming of the tyres, then they brought 3 compounds of the 5 available compounds, and labelled those 3 in a way, that implied sometimes you had to look up which sidewall color is which hardness. A simplification, which brought pure simplification for the very casual fans, and for the all knowing experts likely, while added a layer of complexity, if you were sometimes unsure which color is actually which compound. Although hard tyres seemed to be almost everlasting, if they were not destroyed by going outside of their operational window, and apart from their somewhat frequent and sadly silent failures.

   I don’t find this change at the qualis and starting orders simple. WTCR had some similarly complex IIRC with two qualifications, and 3 races in the recent years, and different length of quali with different length of sessions for street circuits. I don’t know whether a prominent series ever came up with such a complex qualification system.

   A bit it feels like a live test of F1’s reverse grid sprint races. Which I consider as a run it twice, a filter after qualification, and you know at poker, run it twice is only an insurance for the good players.

   On the other hand: I don’t have problem with feeder or development series having some kind of reverse grids, especially if the machinery is not equal, to support all participants with a better opportunity to show their talents, that they can manage front running, or battles of the midfield even with a lesser car. F2 is said to be a spec series, but there were some struggling teams, I guess because of financial reasons. But still this system seems to be complex.

   I think F1’s reliability requirements on the tech side would be at a nice place at F2 instead. And also there is no problem for me with a development series having very specificated tech rules. These are good things when it’s about the success or failure of those young drivers and the lof of money invested into them.

   I find the gap between the race weekeds big for a development series too, especially in contrast winth F1.
5. 

   Dave
   24th March 2021, 16:41

   Not excited for this new format. Revert back next year.

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