2020 Formula 2 Championship
The 2020 FIA Formula 2 Championship was a motor racing championship for Formula 2 cars, sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. The championship was the fifty-fourth season of Formula 2 racing and the fourth season run under the FIA Formula 2 Championship moniker. It is an open-wheel racing category, that serves as the second tier of formula racing in the FIA Global Pathway. The category was run in support of selected rounds of the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship. As the championship was a spec series, all teams and drivers competing in the championship ran the same car, the Dallara F2 2018.
Nyck de Vries was the 2019 drivers' champion, having won the title at the penultimate race of the 2019 championship in Russia, thus Mick Schumacher became the next driver to win the title at the final race in the Outer layout of the Bahrain International Circuit with 14 points ahead of runner-up Callum Ilott. DAMS were the reigning teams' champions, having secured their first Formula 2 title in Abu Dhabi. Prema Racing became the next team to clinch teams' title for the first time, after the finish of the feature race in the Outer layout of the Bahrain International Circuit.
2020 was due to be the final season with the Dallara F2 2018 chassis package which debuted in 2018 with a new chassis introduced for 2021. This was delayed for another three seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The season would see a record 12 different race winners: with the most race victories of 4 for Robert Shwartzman, 3 wins went to Callum Ilott, Yuki Tsunoda and Felipe Drugovich. 2 races were won by champion Mick Schumacher, Christian Lundgaard and Nikita Mazepin. Other drivers, who won a race were victorious once: victories went to Luca Ghiotto and Nobuharu Matsushita,, and others: Dan Ticktum and Jehan Daruvala with last winner being Guanyu Zhou.
Entries
The following teams and drivers are under contract to compete in the 2020 championship. As the championship is a spec series, all competitors race with an identical Dallara F2 2018 chassis with a V6 turbo engine developed by Mecachrome and with tyres supplied by Pirelli.Team changes
joined the championship, bringing the total number of teams up to eleven. HWA Racelab replaced Arden International on the grid. HWA had formed a technical partnership with the team in 2019.Driver changes
Reigning team champions DAMS fielded a new driver line-up. Sérgio Sette Câmara left to compete in Super Formula and Nicholas Latifi graduated to Formula One with Williams. They were replaced by Sean Gelael, who left Prema Racing, and two-time Macau Grand Prix winner Dan Ticktum.Luca Ghiotto left UNI-Virtuosi to join the new Hitech Grand Prix team. Callum Ilott moved from Sauber Junior Team by Charouz to replace him.
Reigning champion Nyck de Vries left ART Grand Prix and the championship to join Mercedes in Formula E. Nikita Mazepin also left the team to join Ghiotto at Hitech Grand Prix. Their seats were taken by Marcus Armstrong and Christian Lundgaard, who finished second and sixth respectively in the 2019 FIA Formula 3 Championship. Lundgaard had made his Formula 2 debut with Trident at the final race of the 2019 season.
Carlin signed two new drivers for 2020. Louis Delétraz left the team to rejoin Charouz Racing System, the team he had competed with in, and Nobuharu Matsushita moved to MP Motorsport. They were replaced by Red Bull juniors Jehan Daruvala and Yuki Tsunoda, who graduated from the FIA Formula 3 Championship having finished third and ninth respectively in 2019.
Campos Racing did not retain reigning Euroformula Open champion Marino Sato, who competed for the team in the final races of 2019. Sato moved to Trident, with Campos hiring Formula 3 Brasil champion Guilherme Samaia to replace him.
Charouz Racing System driver Juan Manuel Correa was ruled out of the 2020 championship due to his injuries from the 2019 Spa-Francorchamps FIA Formula 2 round, while Matevos Isaakyan—who replaced Correa for the final races of the 2019 championship—was not retained. The team signed 2019 FIA Formula 3 fifth-placed finisher Pedro Piquet to partner Louis Delétraz for 2020.
Jordan King and Mahaveer Raghunathan both left MP Motorsport and the championship. The team hired 2018 Euroformula Open champion Felipe Drugovich to partner Nobuharu Matsushita.
BWT HWA Racelab retained Artem Markelov, who raced for the team in the final races of 2019 as a replacement for the late Anthoine Hubert. Tatiana Calderón left the championship to compete in Super Formula and Giuliano Alesi switched from Trident to replace her.
Reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Robert Shwartzman graduated to the championship with Prema Racing, replacing Sean Gelael.
Trident hired Roy Nissany, who last competed in Formula 2 in 2018 with Campos, to partner Marino Sato.
Midseason changes
Sean Gelael suffered a broken vertebra during the last lap of the feature race in Barcelona when he collided with Jack Aitken. As a result, Gelael was declared unfit to participate in Spa and the following three rounds, leaving his DAMS seat vacant. The team hired Red Bull Junior driver Jüri Vips as an interim driver.Matsushita left the MP Motorsport team after the Mugello round, and Alesi moved across from BWT HWA Racelab to replace him with immediate effect. HWA's FIA Formula 3 Championship driver Jake Hughes graduated to Formula 2 to replace Alesi.
2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship runner-up Théo Pourchaire was promoted to Formula 2 for the last two races, replacing Hughes at BWT HWA Racelab.
At the Formula One Sakhir Grand Prix, Campos Racing driver Jack Aitken was called up to the Williams Formula One team as a replacement for 2018 Formula 2 champion George Russell, who replaced an absent Lewis Hamilton. Ralph Boschung stood in for Aitken for the final round of the championship.
Calendar
Both the original and revised calendars had twelve rounds scheduled to take place as part of the 2020 championship. Each round consists of two races: a Feature race, which is run on Saturday, over a distance of and includes a mandatory pit stop; and a Sprint race, which is run over and does not require drivers to make a pit stop.Calendar changes
The Circuit Paul Ricard round that was run in support of the French Grand Prix was removed from the calendar. It was replaced by a round at the Circuit Zandvoort, running in support of the revived Dutch Grand Prix. The Bahrain and Barcelona rounds were postponed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the Zandvoort, Monaco and Baku rounds were cancelled alongside the Dutch, Monaco and Azerbaijan Grands Prix. A revised calendar was published in June 2020, featuring two rounds at the Red Bull Ring and two at the Silverstone Circuit. On 10 July 2020, Mugello was added as the ninth round of the season. It was the first time for this circuit to be featured in the schedule of the main Formula One feeder series since the 1997 International Formula 3000 Championship. On 29 July 2020, Sochi was added to the calendar as the tenth round of the season. The championship used the Outer Circuit layout for the season finale at Bahrain.Regulation changes
Technical changes
The championship increased the wheel rims from to allow Formula One tyre partner Pirelli to gather data on how the larger tyres would work ahead of Formula One's adoption of 460 mm wheels in 2022. In addition the Pirelli FIA Formula 2 Championship tyre sizes were also slightly altered with the front tyre width increased from while the rear tyre width remained same at. The overall tyre diameter sizes were increased from as a result of 460 mm wheel rim introduction. The conventional 330 mm wheel rims that had been used since 2005 were retired.Season report
Opening rounds
's Guanyu Zhou started the season opener at the Red Bull Ring from pole position alongside series debutant Felipe Drugovich in second place. Zhou led the majority of the race and fought closely with teammate Callum Ilott and Prema Racing's Mick Schumacher. A technical issue later dropped Zhou to the back and Schumacher's chance of victory was lost after a trip through the gravel at turn six, allowing Ilott to claim his first Formula 2 race victory. Drugovich started the sprint race on pole position by virtue of finishing eighth in the feature race. He maintained the lead for the whole race distance to take his debut win in Formula 2. The opening round finished with Ilott leading the championship, four points ahead of Prema's Robert Shwartzman.Formula 2 remained at the Red Bull Ring on the following weekend, where Carlin's Yuki Tsunoda took pole position. The feature race began under safety car conditions due to wet weather. Tsunoda led for most of the race, but radio issues prevented him from hearing his team's call to enter the pits, causing the gap behind him to close as his tyres degraded. After eventually making a pit stop, he had lost position to Shwartzman, Ilott and Zhou. Tsunoda recovered to second place but was unable to overtake Shwartzman, who took his first Formula 2 victory and the championship lead. Tsunoda and Shwartzman both retired from the sprint race, Tsunoda with a suspected clutch issue and Shwartzman after spinning on the opening lap. ART Grand Prix's Christian Lundgaard overtook reverse-grid pole sitter Dan Ticktum to claim his maiden Formula 2 victory. Despite his retirement, Shwartzman maintained the lead of the championship by five points over Ilott.
Ilott claimed pole position in the wet qualifying session at the Hungaroring. During the feature race he traded the lead with Schumacher, but fell down the order in the closing laps as his medium-compound tyres degraded. Conversely, Shwartzman and Hitech Grand Prix's Nikita Mazepin, who started the race 11th and 16th respectively, switched from medium to soft-compound tyres later in the race. This proved to be the superior strategy and Shwartzman came through the field to take his second consecutive feature race victory, with Mazepin second. Ilott started on pole position for the sprint race. Whilst most drivers elected to make a pit stop, Hitech's Luca Ghiotto did not. This left Ghiotto in the lead with a 40-second gap behind to Ilott, which rapidly closed over the final ten laps. Ilott was ultimately unable to pass Ghiotto, who took his sixth Formula 2 victory by less than half a second. After the Hungaroring round, Shwartzman had extended his championship lead over Ilott to 18 points.