80 replies to this topic

[KWSN - DSM]

I thought he's doing F3 next year isn't he?

 

Stepping up from FRECA this year?

 

Not sure how I managed to have him racing in F3 this season, clearly have not followed too closely.

[Elloh]

Dino Beganovic rumored for the second seat at Hitech
https://www.autohebd...rPyRPqOfd2BOLIA

And now confirmed:

'Dino Beganovic will step up to the FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2025, joining Hitech GP on the final rung of the junior ladder to Formula 1.'

https://dinoracing.s...-2-championship

Edited by Elloh, Yesterday, 09:12.

[sportyskells]

Prema also said its 2nd driver and it's a surname we know S. Montoya

[Myrvold]

Prema also said its 2nd driver and it's a surname we know S. Montoya

 

Meh. Then I would've liked to see Beganovic instead!

[Anja]

Considering 2024 Beganovic might be better off at Hitech. 

[Muppetmad]

Indeed. Prema still looked fairly lost at the end of the season.

[JG]

Great to see Dino getting a F2 seat. 2025 will be interesting. 

[Frood]

Montoya is slow and crash-prone. He’s a waste of a seat, unfortunately.

Beganovic/Browning might be a title-winning pair.

Edited by Frood, Yesterday, 14:20.

[Frood]

Miyata confirmed at ART, too. He had a pretty rubbish year this year, but I’m not that displeased he’s getting a second chance.
 

Team            Driver 1               Driver 2            Rumoured
Invicta         Leonardo Fornaroli     Roman Staněk        
Campos          Arvid Lindblad         TBC                 Pepe Martí
MP Motorsport   Richard Verschoor      Oliver Goethe
Hitech          Luke Browning          Dino Beganovic
Prema           Gabriele Minì          Sebastián Montoya
DAMS            Jak Crawford           Kush Maini          
ART             Ritomo Miyata          TBC                 Victor Martins
Rodin           Christian Mansell      TBC                 Alex Dunne
AIX             TBC                    TBC                 Joshua Dürksen, Cian Shields, Nico Varrone
Trident         Max Esterson           Sami Meguetounif
Van Amersfoort  TBC                    TBC                 Rafael Villagómez, Santiago Ramos, Amaury Cordeel

Edited by Frood, Yesterday, 14:30.

[Myrvold]

Considering 2024 Beganovic might be better off at Hitech. 

Indeed. Prema still looked fairly lost at the end of the season.

 

Oh, I agree. I just like the guy in the Prema vids!

 

Man, I shouldn't be so supportive of a Swede. I'm supposed to be Norwegian...!

[GhostR]

 

Miyata confirmed at ART, too. He had a pretty rubbish year this year, but I’m not that displeased he’s getting a second chance.
 

Team            Driver 1               Driver 2            Rumoured
Invicta         Leonardo Fornaroli     Roman Staněk        
Campos          Arvid Lindblad         TBC                 Pepe Martí
MP Motorsport   Richard Verschoor      Oliver Goethe
Hitech          Luke Browning          Dino Beganovic
Prema           Gabriele Minì          Sebastián Montoya
DAMS            Jak Crawford           Kush Maini          
ART             Ritomo Miyata          TBC                 Victor Martins
Rodin           Christian Mansell      TBC                 Alex Dunne
AIX             TBC                    TBC                 Joshua Dürksen, Cian Shields, Nico Varrone
Trident         Max Esterson           Sami Meguetounif
Van Amersfoort  TBC                    TBC                 Rafael Villagómez, Santiago Ramos, Amaury Cordeel

 

Not been following the juniors as much this season. Am I right that the ones to watch next season are going to be:

 

- Fornaroli

- Lindblad

- Beganovic

- Mini

 

With the rest either being returnees that we can use to judge the progress of the above four, or drivers stepping up from F3 who may become multi-season F2 drivers if they're lucky but go no further?

 

Edit: Add Mansell and Browning to the above list? Mansell's peaks were high, but sporadic. Browning's results disappeared latter season... actually, a few of them collapsed final 3/4 rounds, in particular Lindblad's results fell off a cliff final 3 rounds - what was that about?

Edited by GhostR, Yesterday, 14:51.

[Frood]

Not been following the juniors as much this season. Am I right that the ones to watch next season are going to be:

- Fornaroli
- Lindblad
- Beganovic
- Mini

With the rest either being returnees that we can use to judge the progress of the above four, or drivers stepping up from F3 who may become multi-season F2 drivers if they're lucky but go no further?

Arguably Browning had a better year in F3 than all of the above, so I wouldn’t count him out. I think Lindblad might turn out to be the best of the lot, with the caveat that he has collapsed in the final stretch of the season for the last two years now - that’s my biggest question mark over him.

I don’t think Minì and Beganovic really developed as much in their second F3 season as they should have done, but some of that may have been down to Prema starting to miss the mark. Both have already had good performances in their F2 cameos, so I think they’ll definitely be in the mix next year.

I still don’t know what to think of Fornaroli. The fact he didn’t win a race this year is a bit misleading as he was the fastest overall in Qualifying pace and had the best race pace. Then again, he’s only won two races in his whole career!

[GhostR]

Arguably Browning had a better year in F3 than all of the above, so I wouldn’t count him out. I think Lindblad might turn out to be the best of the lot, with the caveat that he has collapsed in the final stretch of the season for the last two years now - that’s my biggest question mark over him.

I don’t think Minì and Beganovic really developed as much in their second F3 season as they should have done, but some of that may have been down to Prema starting to miss the mark. Both have already had good performances in their F2 cameos, so I think they’ll definitely be in the mix next year.

I still don’t know what to think of Fornaroli. The fact he didn’t win a race this year is a bit misleading as he was the fastest overall in Qualifying pace and had the best race pace. Then again, he’s only won two races in his whole career!

 

I edited while you were replying ... picked up on Browning. Thanks for the above!

[Risil]

F2 is now used for sponsors to get near F1. Verschoor said so last week on Ziggo. Other classes doesn't interest sponsors as much.

 

How does this work, out of interest? It gets you paddock passes, relationships with drivers who may be on the way up, or...?

 

(I've assumed this is a key part of the appeal ever since F3000 joined up (ish) with the F1 calendar in 1998. But never really sure how it worked in practice, just that everyone clearly values the co-location because the relationship has lasted so long.)

[KWSN - DSM]

Prema also said its 2nd driver and it's a surname we know S. Montoya

 

He is not good enough for F2, he will score points, he is not useless, he is however nowhere near being a F1 talent, should move to FE , Indycar or WEC, since that is where he is headed anyway.

[Muppetmad]

As I said a while back, Montoya must be Prema's weakest signing since Gelael.

[Viryfan]

How does this work, out of interest? It gets you paddock passes, relationships with drivers who may be on the way up, or...?

(I've assumed this is a key part of the appeal ever since F3000 joined up (ish) with the F1 calendar in 1998. But never really sure how it worked in practice, just that everyone clearly values the co-location because the relationship has lasted so long.)

F2 drivers gets some support race paddock pass for their sponsors and access to catering plus other advantages which gets you closer to the F1 paddock than the average spectator nowdays unless it pays 2000$ minimum with F1 experience.

[Risil]

"Access to catering" -- the glamorous life of the F1 circus!!

[SenorSjon]

How does this work, out of interest? It gets you paddock passes, relationships with drivers who may be on the way up, or...?

 

(I've assumed this is a key part of the appeal ever since F3000 joined up (ish) with the F1 calendar in 1998. But never really sure how it worked in practice, just that everyone clearly values the co-location because the relationship has lasted so long.)

 

 

F2 drivers gets some support race paddock pass for their sponsors and access to catering plus other advantages which gets you closer to the F1 paddock than the average spectator nowdays unless it pays 2000$ minimum with F1 experience.

 

Much like this. It is for networking purposes around big companies associated with F1 teams. It is more profitable for them to use a driver as carriage for their own good. They are hardly interested in IndyCar for example because that is USA only.

[DJH63]

How does this work, out of interest? It gets you paddock passes, relationships with drivers who may be on the way up, or...?

 

(I've assumed this is a key part of the appeal ever since F3000 joined up (ish) with the F1 calendar in 1998. But never really sure how it worked in practice, just that everyone clearly values the co-location because the relationship has lasted so long.)

Paddock passes, access to the best F1 hospitality and the feeder series teams have relationship with the F1 teams so at most races you’ll be able to sneak a place in the F1 garages during the race, plus your company advertised in the F1 orbit.

 

Coincidentally though most drivers seem to share a surname with their main sponsors….

[Sabre1977]

Marti confirmed at Campos

https://x.com/Campos...528985926210031

[Jellyfishcake]

Montoya at Prema is a surprise, even if he's raced for them at F4 and FRECA levels.

Makes me think that are the tough season they've had they kind of need a bit more money to freshen things up, because they're not expecting him to get the results, that job will fall to Mini.

Montoya was 13th in FRECA, then 16th and then 17th in F3

[Racer3000]

If Martins doesn't do a third season, I see only Mini, Lindblad and Beganovic fighthing for the title. I don't put Beganovic in the "ultrafast" level, but he's less mistake prone than Mini, and it seems to me (just an hypothesis) Lindblad tends to struggle a bit with the pressure of being hyped after he wins some races in a series (happened in F4 Italia and F3). So Beganovic could win it for having a balanced combination of speed, consistency and also a competitive car. Honestly I don't think Browning will fight for the title. In my opinion, he's average in terms of speed - destroyed by his teammate Mini in F3 2023 and didn't look very promising when drove for ART in the three rounds he did in F2 this year.

[Racer3000]

Live timing going on. Three days of post-season testing:

 

https://livetiming.g...#screen-results

 

"The test will run from December 11-13, the morning segments going from 09:00 local time (GMT+4) to 12:00 on all three days while the afternoon’s action will go from 14:00 to 17:00 but only on the first two days. There will be a slight change in the final afternoon session on Friday with running set to move up by an hour, starting at 13:00 local time before the ending at 16:00."

Edited by Racer3000, Today, 07:11.

[HistoryFan]

Invicta: Leonardo Fornaroli – Roman Stanek

Campos: Arvin Lindblad – Pepe Marti

MP: Richard Verschoor – Oliver Goethe

Hitech: Dino Breganovic – Luke Browning

Prema: Gabriele Mini – Sebastian Montoya

DAMS: Jak Crawford – Kush Maini

ART: Ritomo Miyata – Victor Martins (?)

Rodin: Christian Mansell – Alex Dunne (?)

AIX: Cian Shields (?) – Joshua Dürksen / Nicolas Varrone (?)
Trident: Masx Esterson – Sami Meguetounif
Van Amersfoort: John Benett (?) – Rafael Vollagomez (?)

[KWSN - DSM]

Invicta: Leonardo Fornaroli – Roman Stanek

Campos: Arvin Lindblad – Pepe Marti

MP: Richard Verschoor – Oliver Goethe

Hitech: Dino Breganovic – Luke Browning

Prema: Gabriele Mini – Sebastian Montoya

DAMS: Jak Crawford – Kush Maini

ART: Ritomo Miyata – Victor Martins (?)

Rodin: Christian Mansell – Alex Dunne (?)

AIX: Cian Shields (?) – Joshua Dürksen / Nicolas Varrone (?)
Trident: Masx Esterson – Sami Meguetounif
Van Amersfoort: John Benett (?) – Rafael Vollagomez (?)

 

Seems we are in for one of the down-year F2 seasons.

[KWSN - DSM]

Only possible F1 driver I see there is Lindblad.

[noikeee]

That's way too pessimistic, what I see is the top 8 of F3 all moving up at once and most of them into interesting seats, with not that many leftover drivers hanging on for 3rd, 4th, 5th seasons. That's all pretty good. It's true that no driver here is looking like a slam dunk future F1 superstar, but the likes of Mini and Beganovic and Lindblad have all shown very impressive flashes of talent in the past, just not the consistency through a whole season. Any of them could yet still take that step.

 

We'll only really know 3, 4, 5 years into the future when the dust settles and we can look at it with more distance, but I think this next season is looking quite a lot better than when F2 was Mick vs Zhou vs Shwartzman, for example...

 

Now if they could only sort out whatever's made F2 ridiculously random and a bit of a Mecachrome lottery, but hey maybe I'm asking for too much...

Edited by noikeee, Today, 20:02.

[KWSN - DSM]

Top 10 5 years ago

1. de Vries
2. Latifi
3. Ghiotto
4. Camara
5. Aitken
6. Matsushita
7. Zhou
8. Deletraz
9. King
10. Hubert

 

Top 10 4 years ago

1. Schumacher
2. Ilott
3. Tsunoda
4. Shwartzman
5. Mazepin
6. Zhou
7. Lundgaard
8. Deletraz
9. Drugovich
10. Ghiotto

I think the 2020 season proved to be much better, in how I do not think the 2025 will match the 3 drivers stepping into full season drivers coming over from 2024.

 

But I have been wrong before.

[noikeee]

I mean those two lists are just... plain bad lol. I do think there are a couple of drivers with some talent there (ie De Vries, Drugovich), but Tsunoda is the only one that had any success in F1.

 

I don't know if Lindblad/Mini/Beganovic will make it, but I don't think it's hard to think at least one of those could turn out to be a bigger success than Tsunoda. They've shown they have the potential, they're only lacking the consistency as of now.

[KWSN - DSM]

I mean those two lists are just... plain bad lol. I do think there are a couple of drivers with some talent there (ie De Vries, Drugovich), but Tsunoda is the only one that had any success in F1.

 

I don't know if Lindblad/Mini/Beganovic will make it, but I don't think it's hard to think at least one of those could turn out to be a bigger success than Tsunoda. They've shown they have the potential, they're only lacking the consistency as of now.

 

I think Lindblad is good, I am not sure about the rest of them, but until season have been run, what do we know - I would like is US drivers coming over and at least give the appearance of being good F1 prospects, rather than build their CV's in US and not being easy 1-to1 comparable to the rest of the drivers in the world.

 

I blame the US drivers, everyone know how relatively easy it is to get a Superlicense, if the US drivers have the talent they can get one easily, staying in the US makes it that much harder.