🇦🇹 F1'25, R11: Call me up

The first year Richard Verschoor entered Formula 2, it was 2021. By the end of that year, Max Verstappen won his first world title. 

That same year, Formula 3 Champion Oscar Piastri also made his Formula 2 debut, winning the title on first attempt, scoring nearly 200 points more than Verschoor, who was 11th.

That Instagram embed is from 2021, or 206 weeks ago, by the way. The junior system has a rule that says you're not allowed to defend your title in F2 or F3. You win it, you move on, you (should) move up.

It has not always been like that for Formula 2 champions. For every race winner like Charles Leclerc, there are drivers stuck in limbo like Felipe Drugovich. 

Piastri is leading the Formula 1 standings after Austria, picking up 18 points as his teammate Lando Norris cut his lead by seven points ahead of his home race in Silverstone. Both drivers showed why they're at the top of the standings, with lap after lap of racing as competitive as the mysterious Papaya Rules allow in the first half of the race around the Red Bull Ring.

Oscar Piastri could well become the first world champion to do so after winning F3 and F2. The junior system that shadows Formula 1 working to perfection for the Australian, who switched from the Alpine to McLaren academies via some viral Tweets and the odd court case. 

This is how it’s meant to be. Going through the feeder series and being noticed and promoted by your F1 team who finance your very expensive seat and that patience being rewarded while you’re on the “best work experience ever” by slicing your way through the field on Saturdays and Sundays, learning about the car and racing around the world. 

Eventually you become a candidate for Formula 1 and one of the 20 seats available at the top. If not with your current driver academy, then you move to another team and forge a new path. 

By contrast, Verschoor has kept his Formula 2 seat with the exception of Jeddah 2021, when his career was derailed for budget reasons. This is not me saying he has had it easy in any way, or that his achievements shouldn’t count. Of course they should, but the killer question is this: What purpose does a driver serve when they have over 100 starts in a series everyone should be fighting to never drive in again?

It’s not just him either. In the past, Ralph Boschung started 120 races, winning one in his final season. Roy Nissany spent five years in F2, collecting 42 points on track and at least 12 penalty points for an accumulation of collisions and plain bad decisions while racing. Jack Aitken was around forever before getting one F1 race around the Bahrain outer loop. Artem Markelov developed a cult following through over 100 GP2/F2 races and now Verschoor and the likes of Amaury Cordeel are clogging up the potential progression for the next generation of F2 and possibly F1 drivers by entering yet another season.

There is one potential counter-argument for spending half a decade in F2 and that’s to be the measuring stick against youngsters. Verschoor was the future once upon a time, and it’s easy to forget that he’s still 24, but there are literal teenagers lining up next to him, and the likes of Arvid Lindblad now have a legitimate final boss to test himself against.

No Formula 2 driver has won more than eight races, with champions Nyck de Vries, Felipe Drugovich and longtime driver Markelov achieving the feat. Verschoor is close to joining them, with his feature race win being his seventh - the same number as Leclerc, Russell and even surpassing Piastri’s six. It just took them far less time to achieve than Verschoor.

I’m intrigued by Verschoor and his continued run in Formula 2 and whether he had any ambition to actually progress. It seems as though he does. From his website:

This is a clear mission statement and he should get some credit for managing to get on the grid without the help of a driver academy (his website has the logo of every Dutch company you can think of) and he should also get some credit for his longevity. Despite this statement, there doesn’t seem to be any serious chatter linking his name to any vacant F1 seat and he has not assumed reserve driver duties or had F1 teams knocking on his door to bring him into their system.

But Verschoor knows that if he wins the junior series, he cannot do it again in 2026. Winning the title blocks him off. It made me think of going one step further before realising there is a series that has this precise rule. F1 Academy has a rule that says drivers are allowed only two seasons before they have to move out of the series. There will be no Verschooring in F1 Academy, and dominant champion Abbi Pulling moved on to GB3 this season (she’s currently 17th).

The rule change here I’d propose is that you become ineligible for Formula 3 after three seasons and 50 races (i.e. you won’t be kicked out halfway through a season) or 250 points and for F2, 65 races and three seasons or 300 points. At that point, either you move to F1, another racing series and it’s time to say goodbye and take that funding elsewhere, vacating the seat for the next hopeful. 

Given Verschoor’s experience and nationality, a move to endurance racing feels far more likely than IndyCar or a move to another Stateside series. Unfortunately, for all of his positives, Verschoor is an advert for why the feeder series is not working, while Piastri is a great advert for why it is, currently at the top of F1.

The races come in waves and the Great British summer is up next, with Silverstone’s fast open corners competing with the Women’s Euros and Wimbledon for space in your sporting conscience. It’s possible that Norris could take the lead at the top of the standings at his home race, but to do that, he’ll need Piastri to fail badly around a track that he has finished fourth at in his previous two attempts in McLaren machinery. Fourth would feel like a failure for Piastri, who has finished at least fourth in every race except the opener in Melbourne.

PS: I know I missed the previous race’s blog. I have most of it written, but I wanted to get it right. I’ll publish it but won’t send it. Thanks for reading.