Formula 2. 2026 season

Origin

The FIA Formula 2 Championship descends directly from the GP2 Series, launched in 2005 by Bruno Michel and Flavio Briatore with Bernie Ecclestone's backing to replace International Formula 3000, whose final race had run at Monza on 11 September 2004.¹ GP2 was conceived as a strict one-make category — identical Dallara chassis and engines for every entrant — so that the championship would measure drivers rather than budgets.¹ The first race ran at Imola on 23 April 2005 and was won by Heikki Kovalainen; Nico Rosberg took the inaugural title for ART Grand Prix, 120 points to Kovalainen's 105, and stepped straight into a Williams Formula 1 seat for 2006.¹ His ART replacement, Lewis Hamilton, won the 2006 crown and joined McLaren; nine of GP2's twelve champions reached Formula 1 before the series was renamed the FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2017.²³

Turning points

A production line for Formula 1

The championship's defining output is its graduates. Rosberg and Hamilton both went on to Formula 1 World Championships, and the F2-era roll call has sharpened the pattern: Charles Leclerc (2017), George Russell (2018) and Oscar Piastri (2021) all won the title as rookies and moved directly onto the Formula 1 grid.²⁴ The pipeline now runs the full ladder — Leclerc, Russell, Piastri, Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli are the five drivers to have won the FIA Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in consecutive seasons.⁴

Spa 2019 and the safety ledger

Formula 2 carried the halo from its 2018 car onwards, introduced alongside Formula 1 as the first championships to fit the device.⁵ It was not enough on 31 August 2019, when Anthoine Hubert was killed in the feature race at Spa-Francorchamps: the FIA's investigation reconstructed a 14.6-second sequence at Raidillon in which Hubert's near-stationary car was struck by Juan Manuel Correa's at 218 km/h, a peak deceleration of 81.8g, and concluded there was no single cause and no driver error.⁶ The findings fed the next chassis — the 2024 car's roll hoop is rated to a load 20 per cent higher and its survival cell was tested to a deceleration 30 per cent greater than the previous generation's.⁷

One chassis, controlled costs

The series runs on fixed chassis cycles. The Dallara F2 2018 paired the halo with a 3.4-litre turbocharged Mecachrome V6 of 620 bhp; its planned replacement was deferred so teams would not carry the cost through the pandemic, stretching its life to six seasons.⁵⁷ The Dallara F2 2024, styled after the current generation of Formula 1 cars and designed to Formula 1's 2024 safety standards, deliberately retained the existing engine and gearbox to cap the bill, and is slated to run until 2029.⁷

Today's shape

The 2026 season comprises fourteen rounds and twenty-eight races across thirteen countries, every one a Formula 1 support event — opening in Melbourne on 6–8 March, adding Madrid's new Madring circuit in place of Imola, and closing at Yas Marina on 4–6 December; the series counts it as the tenth under the FIA Formula 2 name and the sixtieth season of Formula 2 racing overall.⁸ Leonardo Fornaroli is the reigning champion: the Invicta Racing driver sealed the 2025 title at Lusail with a round to spare — the first to do so since Felipe Drugovich in 2022 — on nine podiums and four wins, finishing twenty-three of twenty-five races inside the top eight, and became the first Italian champion of the FIA F2 era and its fifth rookie champion.⁴ Invicta took the teams' title for the second consecutive year, and Fornaroli moved up to the McLaren Formula 1 team as reserve driver for 2026.⁴⁹

Footnotes

1. Motorsport.com, "When Nico Rosberg won the inaugural GP2 Series title," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.motorsport.com/fia-f2/news/nico-rosberg-gp2-series-title-2005/10763610/. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. PlanetF1, "Where are they now? The 12 different champions of the defunct GP2 series," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.planetf1.com/features/every-gp2-champion-where-are-they-now. ↩ ↩²

3. "FIA Formula 2 Championship," Wikipedia, accessed 10 June 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIA_Formula_2_Championship. ↩

4. Formula 1, "F2: Leonardo Fornaroli seals title with a round to spare as Victor Martins wins in Qatar," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/f2-fornaroli-seals-title-with-a-round-to-spare-as-martins-wins-in-qatar.251G681I8gZhll4ENAqGHC. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

5. Autosport, "New F2 car for 2018 revealed, featuring halo head protection device," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.autosport.com/formula2/news/new-f2-car-for-2018-revealed-featuring-halo-head-protection-device-4996235/4996235/. ↩ ↩²

6. Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, "FIA concludes investigation into Formula 2 accident at Spa-Francorchamps," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.fia.com/news/fia-concludes-investigation-formula-2-accident-spa-francorchamps. ↩

7. RaceFans, "New, 'more accessible' F2 car for 2024 follows F1's styling lead," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.racefans.net/2023/08/31/new-formula-2-car-2024-revealed/; Motorsport Week, "Formula 2 unveils new chassis for 2024 and beyond," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.motorsportweek.com/2023/08/31/formula-2-unveils-new-chassis-for-2024-and-beyond/. ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. FIA Formula 2, "FIA Formula 2 Championship 2026 season calendar revealed," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.fiaformula2.com/Latest/28OvYB98ektUm0D8vrUgYS/fia-formula-2-championship-2026-season-calendar-revealed. ↩

9. Formula 1, "F2 Champion Leonardo Fornaroli amongst new signings to McLaren Driver Development Programme," accessed 10 June 2026, https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/f2-champion-fornaroli-amongst-new-signings-to-mclaren-driver-development.4T9L93CTg9NS1kIXr7xJCg. ↩