Ten teams in F2 in 2018
While 12 teams had been announced for the 2018 season, only 10 will finally be on the grid of the F1 feeder series.
First up is the Spanish team Racing Engineering, which has been present since 2005 and the creation of GP2, announcing its withdrawal from the 2018 Formula 2 championship. The team won two driver titles in 2008, then in 2013 through Giorgio Pantano and Fabio Leimer. The Spanish team also allowed Lucas Di Grassi and Alexander Rossi to showcase their talent. However, this is not the end of Racing Engineering’s sporting activities, as they will field Norman Nato in ELMS, which is the second tier of the WEC.
The second withdrawal is to be credited to the British team Fortec Motorsports, which was supposed to make the big leap from the defunct Formula V8 3.5. The team, with multiple successes in the former Formula Renault 3.5, will ultimately not make its appearance in Formula 2, without reasons being communicated.
But, among the good news, the Russian structure RUSSIAN TIME will finally remain in the discipline after it had been announced to be leaving. The team led by Svetlana Strelnikova, which started in 2013 in GP2, managed to become team champion the same year it arrived. Not surprisingly, the team will continue to trust the F2 2017 vice-champion Artem Markelov, who is one of the initial reasons for the creation of RUSSIAN TIME. Alongside him, we will find one of the Japanese drivers protected by Honda, Tadasuke Makino, who competed in European F3 last year (fifteenth). Previously, he had managed to become vice-champion of the inaugural season of F4 Japan in 2015, and then finish fifth in the F3 Japan championship in 2016.
Know that Makino will not be the only protege of Honda in Formula 2 since Nirei Fukuzumi (third in GP3 in 2017) will drive for Arden in 2018 while also taking part in some rounds of the Japanese Super Formula championship. Note that Nobuharu Matsushita, who is also nurtured by the brand, will no longer be present at ART in F2 but will compete in a full campaign in Super Formula next season.
To conclude, former RUSSIAN TIME driver, Luca Ghiotto, managed to find a team in F2 for 2018, namely Campos.
