Chasing The Dream at the Monza F2 weekend
At the Press conference ahead of Round 10 of the F2 season at Monza, talk was immediately of the future. Drivers Van Hoepen and Inthrapuvasak were both excited at the prospect of Lando Norris’ new LN4 Fusion Racing Team, which aims to be on the grid in lower feeder series next year and hopefully, F2 by 2028. And that’s what’s needed to retain the best drivers, but also to ensure that the 22 cars on the F2 grid isn’t simply a case of personal wealth or family connections, but just as much about talent.
My son plays football – both for fun and with a local team. If he accidentally kicks his ball into the road, I buy him a replacement. If he wants to practise at home, he can call on a friend for a friendly kickabout in the park. Karting – and its routes through to single seater racing and finally F1 is, as we all know, eye wateringly, bank account emptyingly expensive.
Both the Sprint on Saturday and feature race on Sunday were won comprehensively by Duerksen. This was a sublime weekend for the Invicta Racing driver – starting from 7th in the Sprint and commanding the race to take the lead. In the feature race, the Paraguayan racer took the lead on the opening lap and kept his cool, despite the on-track battles with his teammate Camara, to take the flag. A calm and mature result to mark his 4th victory this season.
Duerksen became a Mercedes Development Driver in February – a role crucially offering him the guidance and contacts to allow him the future opportunities in F1. Duerksen’s teammate Camara, 2nd in the race, has been part of the Ferrari Academy since 2021 – this security offering part of the funding for his progression through the feeder series. From 14-year-old Noah Baglin currently impressing in karting, through to Leclerc and Bearman in F1, the Ferrari driver academy plays a crucial role in identifying and retaining the best drivers. Red Bull racing has long been established as the grandaddy of driver academies, with no less than 7 of the current F1 drivers having benefited from their support and funding.
This weekend, Lando Norris also announced his LN4 Legacy Programme, providing funding from karting through to single seater racing for talented individuals. At the weekend, Martin Brundle interviewed him stating that this alone would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds. Norris interrupted to correct him, “No, it will cost millions”. Current, very rough estimations of the true costs are around £10m for the 14 years of investment needed to start a child at the very beginning and stick with them as they progress upwards.
Cost for my son’s lost football - £8. Even with boots, kit, travel and club subscription, it all comes in at less than £200 per year. £2800 for 14 years. The £10m needed for karting is simply a pipe dream to most children.
Recently, F2 driver Zak O’Sullivan, despite support from Williams Racing, was forced to leave the series due to a lack of funding. He had finished runner up in F3 and won races in F2, but despite this, on announcing his departure Zak stated, “Unfortunately, in our sport, there are more factors at play than just the stopwatch”.
And it is this inequality that the Driver Development programmes are seeking to remove. The F1 Academy series has only recently started being taken seriously by all those across the paddock – most notably due to its pledge that the Academy winner each season will receive a fully funded GB3 seat for 1 year. Its first recipient of this prize, Abi Pulling, now in her 2nd GB3 year, scored a podium this weekend. The funding disappeared after her first year, but she had done enough to prove her skills to entice external sponsors. The inequalities, both in wealth and gender, are perhaps finally starting to reduce.
Back to the F2 race, Colton Herta may well wish he hadn’t bothered travelling to Italy having suffered a miserable weekend. Taking on test driver activities with the Cadillac F1 team, the car came to a halt a handful of laps into the FP1 session. In the F2 Sprint, he finished 15th and then his DNF in the Feature race resulted in the Safety Car being deployed on lap 12.
However, his extensive experience in Indycar (youngest ever race winner and pole sitter) is an example of a series that has devised a fantastic scholarship system to support talented drivers to progress through its ranks. And for the winner of Indycar NXT (the F2 equivalent), the prize is an $850,000 scholarship to progress to Indycar. Herta is a previous teammate of Lando Norris – both of them competing in the MSA Formula in 2015 – Norris winning and Herta coming 3rd. Norris, well aware of his own fortune in having a dad who funded his karting career, has clearly been made aware of the huge discrepancies between F1 and Indycar in how drivers are supported to reach the top.
On Sky Sports, F2 is billed as ‘Chasing The Dream’. This description seems apt, given that the costs are still unthinkably large for anyone but the wealthiest. For this current generation of drivers, the dream may only ever be chased, not realised. For the future drivers however, perhaps the dream may finally be caught.
