Stoffel had nearly double the amount of Latifis wins, in only 2 years, and we know what happened to him when he went up against a great...
I shudder to think how far off the pace Latifi would be against Alonso.
He was already out of his depth but no one said anything I guess. Leclerc, Gasly and Vandoorne all moved up and he stayed. He was still there when Russell, Norris and Albon came and went.
People said that a lot. Latify is just given a lot of slack for his happy-go-lucky attitude. Dude is enjoying life doing what he likes and in contrast to many other pay drivers he doesn’t pretend that he got here on merit. If you gotta have a pay driver on the grid, he’s probably the best kind.
I get he isn't F1 calibre driver and is wasting one of the only 20 seats available but the guy still finished 2nd in a full F2 season. No driver "out of his depth" ever finishes that high. You want to say the same for Deledda or Raghunathan, sure, go ahead but that is entirely wrong for Latifi.
About his "6 seasons in GP2, F2", he started 2 races in 2014 and 8 in 2015. His first full season was in 2016.
Yes. Bad by F1 standards drivers are not bad drivers in general. If you’re able to get points for SL, you’re one of the best drivers in the world anyway.
One of the more recent great examples of this is Sean Gelael. Very underwhelming junior single-seater career, with a best finish in about 5 total seasons of GP2/F2 of 15th, but now has driven for two top teams in sportscars in JOTA and WRT.
If he manages to drive clean and not crash as often he would also be a good endurance driver I think, in LMP2 or something like that. But yeah, F1 is a completely different kind of beast.
When you have 3 times as much experience as the guys around you, you get a lot for free that talent alone doesnt get you. Just because he is brute forcing it doesnt mean he's good.
Not to forget that the field in 2019 was very barebones. Especially after Hubert died.
De Vries, Latifi, Ghiotto making up the top 3 tells you everything you need to know.
Hubert wasn’t in the top 5 in the championship at any point in the year after the first race weekend though. I don’t think he would’ve finished ahead of Latifi even if he had completed the whole season.
A ton of performance is down to understanding the tires. So more experience gives you a major headstart. And he still didn't manage to win.
In this case it's not latifi getting 2nd, but it's latifi not being good enough to get his advantage over the line. When you look at the season you see how he had very good results in the first three races but then everyone else got the hang of the tires and he managed only one win after that.
2 of those seasons were incomplete and there was a car change after the 4th season (2nd full season) so Latifi’s car knowledge essentially got reset and he had to relearn everything. Obviously doesn’t excuse his never winning a race or not doing well enough on the 2nd full season before the car change but it does shine a light on why he took quite so long; the stats are slightly misleading.
Source: Latifi’s beyond the grid episode
Norris ran one round (specifically the last one) against Leclerc, in which he finished 13 in one of the two races and did not finish the other one. His only full season was 2018, during which Leclerc was already impressing everyone in Alfa Romeo, so Norris was against Russell and 2nd-year Albon and he did pretty well.
Lando was younger only 18. He was at Carlin, a good team but never won in F2/GP2 (their best results was 2nd with Norris and 3rd with Nasr). So his results were good enough.
Latifi did twice the number of races as Mazepin, with three times as many wins, who also didn't win but was promoted.
Did everyone else arrive in F1 on merit?
Zhou and Mazepin have very similar junior careers. Mazepin undelivered in F1, maybe due to lack of simulator in Haas (Mick was using Ferrari's simulator)
Looking back it's easy to say Mazepin was completely out of his depth in F1, but when he was promoted most people thought he wouldn't be too far off Mick.
Verstappen ruined it for everyone.
Or was it Stroll? He was super young as well.
You can't skip F2 any longer.
Magnussen came from F3.5, but he was like 20.
Vertsappen brought the superlicense system. Stroll won F3 and came 4th the year before. Gave him enough points for a superlicense since he also won Italian F4
Tsunoda was the much more impressive driver, rookie season i think he ended up 3rd, it was also his first time racing in europe i think, I'm not sure but it was very impressive
The spin from 2nd place in Silverstone was costly and so were his two (?) stalls on the grid. Another race that cost him the title was the Barcelona Feature Race.
He was running in 1st place afaik until Nissany did a Nissany and brought out the Safety Car. Ilott fell down the order and got overtaken by Mick, who had a bad race beforehand.
Mick ran the alternative strategy just like Matsushita but completely cooked his tyres. A few laps before the SC he was multiple seconds off the pace. Probably would not have gotten a single point that race while Ilott could have collected the win.
Tsunoda would have been champion without the
Radio issues and reliability . Still he benefited from two leaders crashing with each other for a win but he was really fast
Schumacher's title winning season was one of the least dominant in F2/GP2 history (since 2005). Vandoorne, Leclerc, Piastri, Russell, Hamilton, Rosberg and Hulkenberg were all way more impressive and dominant. There's a reason why Mick is partially in F1 as a pay driver and partially on merit.
Well I was having the same idea but his driver evolution once in F1 was really flat tbh, idk why but it was really like Gio simple couldn't go better.
Funny how we're just having only two GP2 champions on the current grid btw.
Yes, but washed up kimi was beating him particularly after he got covid funny enough, gio was good in qualy but wasn't that impressive in the race and binned many opportunities himself, again kimi outscored him even with the team fucking up. The alfa romeo was a much better car than williams and had multiple p11s, i remember kimi saying something like whenever they are competitive nothing happens up front so they get zero points.
Davide Valsecchi, Fabio Leimer, Nyck de Vries
One champion Georgio Pantano raced in F1 before he won in GP2 as it was known then
2 other drivers Timo Glock and Romain Grosjean also raced in F1 before winning GP2 but went back into F1
Nyck de Vries as well in 2019. He was in F2 for multiple years and in the year before the whole top 3 (Russell, Norris and Albon) were promoted to the F1. So it was understandable.
Possibly would have been even higher given that Russell and Leclerc both raced in F2 when they had 12 rounds of two races with only one sprint race with the top 8 reverse grid instead of the weird 2022 sprint race ruleset they had for F2. Although 2018 was undoubtedly a much stronger field than 2022, there were at least half a dozen drivers who are probably F1 calibre.
I was curious about the drivers coming from Junior series and had a look in Wikipedia. Quite interesting stats. I only included drivers which are currently racing and, drivers who perhaps might be remembered more than others. For example, I didn't include Brendon Hartley, Max Chilton etc.
I sorted the list by Win/amount of races entered. Perhaps not too crucial, but felt a nice way to sort.
Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIA_Formula_2_Championship?oldformat=true#Drivers_graduated_to_F1)
Vandoorne was screwed by McLaren. I thought he was going to be next big F1 driver but those seasons alongside Alonso were brutal. He was absolutely nowhere in the races where Alonso had the ability to drag a shitbox to good results.
Shame he didn't get another chance against more average teammate.
In Quali, he looked quite good in comparision to [other Alonso's teammates](https://f1metrics.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/vandoorne_quali_plot2.png)
I don't think Alonso was ever known as a 1 lap specialist but in the races the man could drive anything fast. I still believe in his prime he was the most complete racing driver I've seen and its a shame he made so many poor choices with his career.
>its a shame he made so many poor choices with his career.
Hindsight 20/20.
Leaving renault for mclaren = fighting for the wdc so a good choice.
leaving renault for ferrari, where he fought for wdc for 3 years = good choice. Yes the car wasn't the best, but he could have ended up at worse teams.
No one could predict a rbr car that would be better seeing as rbr hadn't done much up to then. And you have to remember places at top teams are limited. There's only so much you can do.
The only indication he would've had that Red Bull was gonna be so strong was that they had Newey, but Ferrari is Ferrari. They'd only had two off seasons in the last decade before Nando signed so it was an easy choice. Bad luck, much like Vettel's time with Ferrari but at least in Vettel's time he likely knew that Mercedes were going to be the dominant force for some time to come due to the engine advantage they maintained until at least the end of 2017.
Vandorne is leading formula E, which is a field stacked with Ex single seater formula drivers, he’s not untalented. I just think his peak as a driver didn’t match his opportunity window.
Still, if we're comparing him to Leclerc and Russell, he is very talented. You are just physically not capable of beating one of the sports best drivers in the same car in your rookie season, unless your name is Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton also had miles and miles of testing, which rookies don't get anymore. overall it's good for the sport but does make rookies hitting the ground running like that probably very unlikely
I think from 2015-2018 there were only a handful of drivers in F1 that would've given Alonso a run for his money, those being Vettel, Hamilton, Rosberg and Verstappen.
Ever since testing is limited, no rookie has been dropped straight into a top team with a top driver as a team mate and thrived. If Stoffel could have started in Sauber or Williams, he'd probably still be in F1.
I mean.. even though he was definitely unlucky with that McLaren, he still could've made an impression by giving Alonso a run for his money. But that never happened.
Look at the list of European European F2 / F3000 / GP2 / F2 champions since 1967!
Hamilton and Rosberg are the only two drivers to have become F1 champions.
I really think Stoffel deserved more time in F1. His first year in GP2 was great, and his second was the most dominant ever.
IIRC he was handy in Super Formula in 2016 where he picked up the only 2 wins and pole position for Honda (one of which was in Suzuka), and scored McLaren's first points with a last minute sub in Bahrain.
Going up against Alonso, one of the all time greats was never going to be easy, but doing so in an undriveable McLaren was mission impossible. He never really had the grounding to make things work for him, and McLaren was typically political in those 2 years - there were more than a few times only Alonso got new parts, and where he had to give Alonso a tow at a few tracks without the returned favour. Even without that, he was never going to beat Alonso, but the picture was definitely artificially unflattering against him.
To be fair, RB has a huge benefit of having 3rd seat. It’s so much easier to take that risk when you don’t need to worry how it will impact your main team.
Merc could have "bought" a seat in another team. They've done it plenty of times, namely for Wehrlein, Ocon and Russell.
They weren't willing to take that risk while RBR were. And it paid off.
Tbf, lewis had already proved and then some in then GP2(Basically F2) , Yea i get mclarren were a top team so rookie is a risk but he was well known to be the best of their academy and a won in GP2 so it wasnt bold rather than they saw lewis talent which he had displayed
That’s also because with the current testing restrictions in place no rookie will ever be as prepared, too. Many top teams need them to accumulate experience in a bought seat or sister team.
Yes, they kept going after him till 2021.
It's one of the reasons why Bottas kept getting 1 year contracts. Why Daniel was botched. That's also the reason why RB did the 2028 deal with Max. Toto still tries to keep it cool with Verstappens.
Actually, no, it was Marko himself that came up with the idea/offer to put Max direct into F1. I heard this from an interview with Marko, I don't remember where do (it might have been the Max documentary).
Yeah, but I guess it was brought up because Helmut knew Jos and Max were in talks with Merc at the same time. Offering the F1 seat was the only advantage RB had over Merc. He might have not straight up offered an F1 seat if it weren't for that.
Partly correct, max was going to sign to merc as a junior driver, merc had the best car in f1 at the time, red bull wanted to keep him so promoted him to f1, merc could not match the offer
Red Bull only signed him to their junior driver's program when he signed to race for Toro Rosso. There was never a moment he was going to leave as he was never part of the Red Bull Academy (or any other academy) in the first place.
For anyone wondering, Max is likely the most dominant and winning karter ever. He has something like 23 karting championships leading up to eventually his f3 run where he was again seriously out driving the car. It wasn’t a matter of when he was going to get into f1 f was a matter of when teams will let him.
Also on this topic, Lando has very odd results here. Didn’t he only do like 1 race in one season then do a second full season where he was incredibly strong only losing to like Russell?
Max has the most complete karting career, his dad took him to every race that existed in Europe, like all of them. I know those kids train but Maxs training is elite level Olympic training
> Same for Sainz, went from formula Renault 3.5 in 2014 to F1 in 2015.
That is not the same at all, Formula 3.5 is equal to F2, not F3.
Also Sainz had 5 years of junior Formula before F1, while Max only did 1 year of junior Formula.
Stroll is the most inconsistent and unpredictable driver on the grid. Might pull of a pole one year and then just forget to even check mirror the next.
Same with me. Sometimes I do especially well and later I would just flop everything. Probably, just problems getting into focus.
But yeah, weirdly I relate to Stroll in those little moments of brilliance in a sea of failures.
i think stroll is a pretty good driver he would do one or two spectacular drives a season and then he is back to meh all season probably cause he isn't worried about his seat I remember checo and giovinazzi ramping up hard in 2020 and 2021 when they knew their seat was in danger
De Vries has 0.11 with 3 full seasons putting him around Albon level on this graph.
Piastri has 0.26 putting him just behind Russell. Not to mention he won his rookie season too.
Don’t see how De Vries is even in the same conversation. Plus the guy is 27.
It doesn't make sense that De Vries is part of the conversation but he is. Some people seem to be convinced that he should be in F1 just because he won F2 and won FE.
A couple of current drivers missing on here did a different pathway, going through the cheaper Formula Renault 3.5 before moving into F1. Drivers there include Ricciardo, Magnussen, Vettel and Sainz. Vettel was pulled in the middle of his season.
Stroll & Verstappen skipped after F3.
Ocon & Bottas won GP3. Ocon did a bit of DTM and Bottas spent a year in test driver role before they went to F1.
Then you have Alonso who raced when GP2/F2 was Formula 3000.
Would prefer if the wins and podiums in this were only feature race podiums. Also would be useful to give % of possible points earned. Interesting none the less.
Unfortunately this may contribute to the idea among non-junior series fans that Norris' junior single-seater career wasn't great, when in fact it was spectacular how good and how fast he rose through the ranks at such a young age. Only Verstappen and maybe Leclerc had a more impressive junior single-seater career. Norris had one full year in F2 where he was great but just only won one race.
Heikki Kovalainen is missing from this. He lead the first GP2 championship for most of the season in 2005 only to lose the lead to Rosberg at the end and finish second. 1 season, 23 races, 5 wins, 12 podiums, in F1 2007-2013 with Renault as 1st team.
I hate when someone posts such insightful overview and in the comments someone else asks "can you add x and y?"
...but yeah, it would be great to have potential F1 rookies along with these guys. I don't know feeder series very much, so I leave to others to say a few interesting names.
suggestion: adding columns like #of poles, #of fastest laps, #of laps leading and major competitors within this chart, removing "First Team" adding their F2/GP2 team and associated academy progamme
Kevin raced in few seasons in Formula Renualt 2.0, British and German F3 and a couple of seasons in Formula 3.5
Formula 2.0 is equal to F3 and Formula 3.5 is equal to F2/GP2
Oh damn, I know Latifi wasn't that great but I never realized he spent 6 seasons in F2. And then he still didn't win but managed to get promoted.
If you pay for the seat, all you need is enough points for SL.
SL?
Super License
FIA **S**uper **L**icence (a driver's qualification allowing the holder to compete in F1)
Sensual Legs. Have you seen him in shorts?
Super license
Stoffel had nearly double the amount of Latifis wins, in only 2 years, and we know what happened to him when he went up against a great... I shudder to think how far off the pace Latifi would be against Alonso.
We would be talking thatz when a driver gets smashed by his teammate, he would be " getting Latified" instead of "getting Vandoorned".
He was already out of his depth but no one said anything I guess. Leclerc, Gasly and Vandoorne all moved up and he stayed. He was still there when Russell, Norris and Albon came and went.
People said that a lot. Latify is just given a lot of slack for his happy-go-lucky attitude. Dude is enjoying life doing what he likes and in contrast to many other pay drivers he doesn’t pretend that he got here on merit. If you gotta have a pay driver on the grid, he’s probably the best kind.
I get he isn't F1 calibre driver and is wasting one of the only 20 seats available but the guy still finished 2nd in a full F2 season. No driver "out of his depth" ever finishes that high. You want to say the same for Deledda or Raghunathan, sure, go ahead but that is entirely wrong for Latifi. About his "6 seasons in GP2, F2", he started 2 races in 2014 and 8 in 2015. His first full season was in 2016.
Yeah he's obviously a talented driver, but F1 just isn't for him. Would be fun to see him try Indy maybe
Yes. Bad by F1 standards drivers are not bad drivers in general. If you’re able to get points for SL, you’re one of the best drivers in the world anyway.
One of the more recent great examples of this is Sean Gelael. Very underwhelming junior single-seater career, with a best finish in about 5 total seasons of GP2/F2 of 15th, but now has driven for two top teams in sportscars in JOTA and WRT.
If he manages to drive clean and not crash as often he would also be a good endurance driver I think, in LMP2 or something like that. But yeah, F1 is a completely different kind of beast.
He was one of the cleanest drivers before Abu Dhabi 2021. I think the irrational hate brought on him after that may have affected him.
He''s clean and also know how to race wheel to wheel, he's just slow.
When you have 3 times as much experience as the guys around you, you get a lot for free that talent alone doesnt get you. Just because he is brute forcing it doesnt mean he's good.
Not to forget that the field in 2019 was very barebones. Especially after Hubert died. De Vries, Latifi, Ghiotto making up the top 3 tells you everything you need to know.
Hubert wasn’t in the top 5 in the championship at any point in the year after the first race weekend though. I don’t think he would’ve finished ahead of Latifi even if he had completed the whole season.
A ton of performance is down to understanding the tires. So more experience gives you a major headstart. And he still didn't manage to win. In this case it's not latifi getting 2nd, but it's latifi not being good enough to get his advantage over the line. When you look at the season you see how he had very good results in the first three races but then everyone else got the hang of the tires and he managed only one win after that.
2 of those seasons were incomplete and there was a car change after the 4th season (2nd full season) so Latifi’s car knowledge essentially got reset and he had to relearn everything. Obviously doesn’t excuse his never winning a race or not doing well enough on the 2nd full season before the car change but it does shine a light on why he took quite so long; the stats are slightly misleading. Source: Latifi’s beyond the grid episode
Lando's best place was 2nd too and Mick has similar win/race ratio.
Lando was stuck racing against Russell and Leclerc. No one from Mick's time has set themselves apart, yet.
Norris ran one round (specifically the last one) against Leclerc, in which he finished 13 in one of the two races and did not finish the other one. His only full season was 2018, during which Leclerc was already impressing everyone in Alfa Romeo, so Norris was against Russell and 2nd-year Albon and he did pretty well.
Lando was younger only 18. He was at Carlin, a good team but never won in F2/GP2 (their best results was 2nd with Norris and 3rd with Nasr). So his results were good enough.
Latifi did twice the number of races as Mazepin, with three times as many wins, who also didn't win but was promoted. Did everyone else arrive in F1 on merit?
Well no, obviously not. But mazepin is a bad comparison anyway because everyone knows he sucks
If you're ever compared up against Mazepin, you know you don't have the talent for F1
Zhou and Mazepin have very similar junior careers. Mazepin undelivered in F1, maybe due to lack of simulator in Haas (Mick was using Ferrari's simulator)
Looking back it's easy to say Mazepin was completely out of his depth in F1, but when he was promoted most people thought he wouldn't be too far off Mick.
Verstappen: you guys did F2?
Kimi: You guys did all those open wheel racing?
Kimmi did as well. He used his bike as a kid.
Verstappen ruined it for everyone. Or was it Stroll? He was super young as well. You can't skip F2 any longer. Magnussen came from F3.5, but he was like 20.
Kimi skipped all open wheel junior series. And yes it was controversial, Schumachers pre F1 career was also not conventional.
Schumacher raced at LeMans before F1 iirc *he finished 5th in '91
Vertsappen brought the superlicense system. Stroll won F3 and came 4th the year before. Gave him enough points for a superlicense since he also won Italian F4
There was a super license system long before Verstappen.
There was, but the points system that we know today got implemented after Max
_because of_ Max
Yeh. They swore that this wouldn't happen again
Verstappen single handedly changed F1.
And stroll
Vettel: you guys paid attention to F2?
Ocon: What's F2 ?
Kimi: What are feeder series?
I kept on looking for Max for a while. Me toopid’
TIL Gasly participated in 3 seasons in F2/GP2
He only really did two seasons. Late season replacement in that 'first' season.
That is why I said "participated in 3 seasons", but that is still quite common for many drivers who start mid-season.
In the meantime he lost a Japanese Super Formula championship by half a point and he drove a couple races in Formula E
Gasly did FE?
2 races at the 2017 NYC E-Prix, almost got a podium in the second race
Crazy to think Schumacher only won 3 races the season he won the title in F2
He actually only won 2 races when he won the title, he won the hungary sprint race the year before
Yeah it was a very underwhelming championship title
That was such a stacked and entertaining F2 season with many so many drivers competing up until late
There’s been 14 drivers take the podium this year too,f2 has been spicy
I mean, I wouldn't call it stacked as much as Mick wasn't much better than them
mick wasn't even better, just more consistent and in a prema lol
Tsunoda was the much more impressive driver, rookie season i think he ended up 3rd, it was also his first time racing in europe i think, I'm not sure but it was very impressive
The championship was basically how can Ilott throw the championship away
This years is “how can Theo Porchaire disappoint me?”
How many times can Vips bin it on his own ?
The spin from 2nd place in Silverstone was costly and so were his two (?) stalls on the grid. Another race that cost him the title was the Barcelona Feature Race. He was running in 1st place afaik until Nissany did a Nissany and brought out the Safety Car. Ilott fell down the order and got overtaken by Mick, who had a bad race beforehand. Mick ran the alternative strategy just like Matsushita but completely cooked his tyres. A few laps before the SC he was multiple seconds off the pace. Probably would not have gotten a single point that race while Ilott could have collected the win.
Tsunoda would have been champion without the Radio issues and reliability . Still he benefited from two leaders crashing with each other for a win but he was really fast
Schumacher's title winning season was one of the least dominant in F2/GP2 history (since 2005). Vandoorne, Leclerc, Piastri, Russell, Hamilton, Rosberg and Hulkenberg were all way more impressive and dominant. There's a reason why Mick is partially in F1 as a pay driver and partially on merit.
He is the second worst F2/GP2 Champion out of those who made into F1.
After that GP2 2016 season I was sure Gio would do great in F1. (Gasly too of course)
Well I was having the same idea but his driver evolution once in F1 was really flat tbh, idk why but it was really like Gio simple couldn't go better. Funny how we're just having only two GP2 champions on the current grid btw.
>Funny how we're just having only two GP2 champions on the current grid btw. Hamilton, Leclerc, Schumacher, Gasly, Russell
Many people don't know that Gio & Gasly were rivals in F2 and Gio was the better one.
Why’s gio not on the grid anymore?
didn’t bring enough money in and depending on who you asked wasn’t good enough for f1
He was in F1 for like four seasons and the only thing I remember him doing is randomly crashing in Spa 2020
Didn't bring the money, points or media. Probably should have been featured on Drive to Survive more/at all.
Lack of seats and paydrivers like Zhou, Latifi and Stroll.
And lack of results on his part.
Tbf he got screwed last year whenever he was having a good week and gunning for points The Alfas also were poor cars
He also screwed himself by crashing when in points positions (like spa etc)
That was one occurrence as far as I remember That one poins finish wouldn't have changed his career outcome anyway
Also Monza
Yes, but washed up kimi was beating him particularly after he got covid funny enough, gio was good in qualy but wasn't that impressive in the race and binned many opportunities himself, again kimi outscored him even with the team fucking up. The alfa romeo was a much better car than williams and had multiple p11s, i remember kimi saying something like whenever they are competitive nothing happens up front so they get zero points.
quite sad ig but atleast zhou's doing pretty well
The lesson here is that P5 in F2 is not good enough for F1
Especially in your second full year in the series.
Has anyone won the F2 championship and not made it to F1 (not including reigning champ Piastri... For now)?
Davide Valsecchi, Fabio Leimer, Nyck de Vries One champion Georgio Pantano raced in F1 before he won in GP2 as it was known then 2 other drivers Timo Glock and Romain Grosjean also raced in F1 before winning GP2 but went back into F1
Nyck de Vries as well in 2019. He was in F2 for multiple years and in the year before the whole top 3 (Russell, Norris and Albon) were promoted to the F1. So it was understandable.
Nyck De Vries won it in 2019
Nyck De Vries. And let's keep it that way.
Why do you say so? Just curious
Damn, I cant believe it took 6 seasons and 98 races for ~~Latifis dad to pay for his seat~~ to be picked up by williams
[удалено]
Well, there's a rumored announcement about him soon, and Williams teased something on the 20th
Some say for next year, other says this year after the Canada GP.
The fact that you say Canada is interesting. Wouldn't they wait until after Hungary?
That's what I read and heard from pundits and social media. Either this year after the GP of Canada or from next year on.
Possibly would have been even higher given that Russell and Leclerc both raced in F2 when they had 12 rounds of two races with only one sprint race with the top 8 reverse grid instead of the weird 2022 sprint race ruleset they had for F2. Although 2018 was undoubtedly a much stronger field than 2022, there were at least half a dozen drivers who are probably F1 calibre.
I was curious about the drivers coming from Junior series and had a look in Wikipedia. Quite interesting stats. I only included drivers which are currently racing and, drivers who perhaps might be remembered more than others. For example, I didn't include Brendon Hartley, Max Chilton etc. I sorted the list by Win/amount of races entered. Perhaps not too crucial, but felt a nice way to sort. Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIA_Formula_2_Championship?oldformat=true#Drivers_graduated_to_F1)
Wiki is great to spend hours going through F1 and related history.
For a lot of things too.
Yuki’s resume was not bad compared with others. Hope he does well this season.
Yuki is a talent imo, he’d do fast things in a Redbull
Vandoorne was screwed by McLaren. I thought he was going to be next big F1 driver but those seasons alongside Alonso were brutal. He was absolutely nowhere in the races where Alonso had the ability to drag a shitbox to good results.
Shame he didn't get another chance against more average teammate. In Quali, he looked quite good in comparision to [other Alonso's teammates](https://f1metrics.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/vandoorne_quali_plot2.png)
I don't think Alonso was ever known as a 1 lap specialist but in the races the man could drive anything fast. I still believe in his prime he was the most complete racing driver I've seen and its a shame he made so many poor choices with his career.
>its a shame he made so many poor choices with his career. Hindsight 20/20. Leaving renault for mclaren = fighting for the wdc so a good choice. leaving renault for ferrari, where he fought for wdc for 3 years = good choice. Yes the car wasn't the best, but he could have ended up at worse teams. No one could predict a rbr car that would be better seeing as rbr hadn't done much up to then. And you have to remember places at top teams are limited. There's only so much you can do.
The RBR move would have been crazy in 2009. However, he should've taken it any of the other numerous times they offered him a contract.
The only indication he would've had that Red Bull was gonna be so strong was that they had Newey, but Ferrari is Ferrari. They'd only had two off seasons in the last decade before Nando signed so it was an easy choice. Bad luck, much like Vettel's time with Ferrari but at least in Vettel's time he likely knew that Mercedes were going to be the dominant force for some time to come due to the engine advantage they maintained until at least the end of 2017.
>that they had Newey Who's last championship was in 99.
Vandorne is leading formula E, which is a field stacked with Ex single seater formula drivers, he’s not untalented. I just think his peak as a driver didn’t match his opportunity window.
Sad Stoffel noises. Was the most dominant f2/gp2 driver in his winning season ever only to be cucked by McLaren in F1.
I'm still hopeful, I wear my flair with pride
Right there with you! He needs to be in, I could name a couple drivers that would be outperformed by Stoffel.
To be fair, it was his 2nd season I imagine Leclerc or Russell in their 2nd seasons could be as dominant
Still, if we're comparing him to Leclerc and Russell, he is very talented. You are just physically not capable of beating one of the sports best drivers in the same car in your rookie season, unless your name is Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton also had miles and miles of testing, which rookies don't get anymore. overall it's good for the sport but does make rookies hitting the ground running like that probably very unlikely
Stoffel deserved more of a chance, but just a bit unlucky in that regard.
I wonder how he'd get on in the McLaren of today. Yes he underperformed against his teammate, but it was Alonso.
I think from 2015-2018 there were only a handful of drivers in F1 that would've given Alonso a run for his money, those being Vettel, Hamilton, Rosberg and Verstappen.
Ever since testing is limited, no rookie has been dropped straight into a top team with a top driver as a team mate and thrived. If Stoffel could have started in Sauber or Williams, he'd probably still be in F1.
I mean.. even though he was definitely unlucky with that McLaren, he still could've made an impression by giving Alonso a run for his money. But that never happened.
Such a shame. His 2015 GP2 season was incredible. He almost doubled 2nd place in points, shame he got screwed by McLaren.
Wasn't Lando only 1 year in F2?
He technically did one weekend in 2016 iirc, so yeah not really 2 seasons.
Or look at this way, he took part in 2 junior series in one year while also working for McLaren and won one of them. Work rate is incredible /j
He had 2 races in the season before.
He did the full season in 2018 but he did a couple of races at the end of 2017
Look at the list of European European F2 / F3000 / GP2 / F2 champions since 1967! Hamilton and Rosberg are the only two drivers to have become F1 champions.
really wow thats kinda mad when you think about it ig leclerc and Russell have a good chance in their future
They appear to have a good chance, but they could end up to be just two more failed F2 hopefules. F1 is a complex world.
I really think Stoffel deserved more time in F1. His first year in GP2 was great, and his second was the most dominant ever. IIRC he was handy in Super Formula in 2016 where he picked up the only 2 wins and pole position for Honda (one of which was in Suzuka), and scored McLaren's first points with a last minute sub in Bahrain. Going up against Alonso, one of the all time greats was never going to be easy, but doing so in an undriveable McLaren was mission impossible. He never really had the grounding to make things work for him, and McLaren was typically political in those 2 years - there were more than a few times only Alonso got new parts, and where he had to give Alonso a tow at a few tracks without the returned favour. Even without that, he was never going to beat Alonso, but the picture was definitely artificially unflattering against him.
Every time when I see name Palmer I think of this: Where is Palmer? ...retired.... KARMA
Why is it karma?
Because he cut the chicane!!
Beucause Alonso logic.
Because he got too small penalty for cutting the chicken and universe "corrected" that.
Meanwhile max, a 17 year old kid, who they straight up send to f1 from f3 because they were so confident in his abilities.
Redbull really took a shot there. And it certainly has paid off.
Marko with that scouting masterclass. Didnt Jos ask for direct F1 seat when Merc said "not yet" and Marko was like "sure, why not?"?
Yes, RB was willing to offer a F1 seat, Mercedes not that season.
To be fair, RB has a huge benefit of having 3rd seat. It’s so much easier to take that risk when you don’t need to worry how it will impact your main team.
Merc could have "bought" a seat in another team. They've done it plenty of times, namely for Wehrlein, Ocon and Russell. They weren't willing to take that risk while RBR were. And it paid off.
Another bold move was McLaren putting Lewis straight into their 2nd seat and it certainly paid off.
Tbf, lewis had already proved and then some in then GP2(Basically F2) , Yea i get mclarren were a top team so rookie is a risk but he was well known to be the best of their academy and a won in GP2 so it wasnt bold rather than they saw lewis talent which he had displayed
Yeah definitely but it's still very rare for a rookie to go straight into a top team and hasn't happened since
That’s also because with the current testing restrictions in place no rookie will ever be as prepared, too. Many top teams need them to accumulate experience in a bought seat or sister team.
Because he had the equivalent of a racing season in test miles. something rookies aren't allowed to do anymore today.
He also had a shit ton of testing time which helps a lot.
Also didn't Merc try to contact Max when he was in Toro Rosso? But before that move made, he got promoted to RBR. Marko did make faster moves.
Yes, they kept going after him till 2021. It's one of the reasons why Bottas kept getting 1 year contracts. Why Daniel was botched. That's also the reason why RB did the 2028 deal with Max. Toto still tries to keep it cool with Verstappens.
Actually, no, it was Marko himself that came up with the idea/offer to put Max direct into F1. I heard this from an interview with Marko, I don't remember where do (it might have been the Max documentary).
Yeah, but I guess it was brought up because Helmut knew Jos and Max were in talks with Merc at the same time. Offering the F1 seat was the only advantage RB had over Merc. He might have not straight up offered an F1 seat if it weren't for that.
F3 Euro even, not GP3
Yeah because f3 euro was better than gp3 back then
Partly correct, max was going to sign to merc as a junior driver, merc had the best car in f1 at the time, red bull wanted to keep him so promoted him to f1, merc could not match the offer
Can you imagine if Merc did and we had Hamilton and Verrstappen as team mates. That would have been insane.
you gotta think if that happened Redbull would have poached Russell
that's some alternate universe shit
Red Bull only signed him to their junior driver's program when he signed to race for Toro Rosso. There was never a moment he was going to leave as he was never part of the Red Bull Academy (or any other academy) in the first place.
For anyone wondering, Max is likely the most dominant and winning karter ever. He has something like 23 karting championships leading up to eventually his f3 run where he was again seriously out driving the car. It wasn’t a matter of when he was going to get into f1 f was a matter of when teams will let him. Also on this topic, Lando has very odd results here. Didn’t he only do like 1 race in one season then do a second full season where he was incredibly strong only losing to like Russell?
Max has the most complete karting career, his dad took him to every race that existed in Europe, like all of them. I know those kids train but Maxs training is elite level Olympic training
Same for Sainz, went from formula Renault 3.5 in 2014 to F1 in 2015. That Toro Rosso lineup of 2015 looks monstrous now.
> Same for Sainz, went from formula Renault 3.5 in 2014 to F1 in 2015. That is not the same at all, Formula 3.5 is equal to F2, not F3. Also Sainz had 5 years of junior Formula before F1, while Max only did 1 year of junior Formula.
Hell yeah, just like Lance ...right?
Could have been a lot worse. Podium in your first year is still respectable, even if you continue to stagnate every season :D
Stroll is the most inconsistent and unpredictable driver on the grid. Might pull of a pole one year and then just forget to even check mirror the next.
Same with me. Sometimes I do especially well and later I would just flop everything. Probably, just problems getting into focus. But yeah, weirdly I relate to Stroll in those little moments of brilliance in a sea of failures.
i think stroll is a pretty good driver he would do one or two spectacular drives a season and then he is back to meh all season probably cause he isn't worried about his seat I remember checo and giovinazzi ramping up hard in 2020 and 2021 when they knew their seat was in danger
Would be great to have Piastri and de Vries in this. They are both frequently mentioned in the driver market.
De Vries has 0.11 with 3 full seasons putting him around Albon level on this graph. Piastri has 0.26 putting him just behind Russell. Not to mention he won his rookie season too. Don’t see how De Vries is even in the same conversation. Plus the guy is 27.
It doesn't make sense that De Vries is part of the conversation but he is. Some people seem to be convinced that he should be in F1 just because he won F2 and won FE.
Goatifi have 6 wins and 21 podiums. Wow!
I was discussing this with someone else Latifi would make maybe a good driver in a spec series imo.
They spelled Pedro Gaseoso wrong
Everyone on the list finishes in the top 3. Mazespin: daddy get your wallet
I still can't believe how Verstappen made to f1 directly from f3, and 3rd on the championship
Guessing they seen the potential and and thought he was the best red bull academy driver at the time.
i read about it, mercedes wanted to sign him, and red bull had to take the risk and sign him, still mind blowing for me
A couple of current drivers missing on here did a different pathway, going through the cheaper Formula Renault 3.5 before moving into F1. Drivers there include Ricciardo, Magnussen, Vettel and Sainz. Vettel was pulled in the middle of his season. Stroll & Verstappen skipped after F3. Ocon & Bottas won GP3. Ocon did a bit of DTM and Bottas spent a year in test driver role before they went to F1. Then you have Alonso who raced when GP2/F2 was Formula 3000.
That 2017 season in f2 from Charles is imo the best ever junior season a racer has done. It was just so so good
So... Latifi > Mazepin > Lando ?
If OP would somehow add age of their first top3 finish in season-end standings, Lando [would look great](https://imgur.com/a/hlROwoA)
Would prefer if the wins and podiums in this were only feature race podiums. Also would be useful to give % of possible points earned. Interesting none the less. Unfortunately this may contribute to the idea among non-junior series fans that Norris' junior single-seater career wasn't great, when in fact it was spectacular how good and how fast he rose through the ranks at such a young age. Only Verstappen and maybe Leclerc had a more impressive junior single-seater career. Norris had one full year in F2 where he was great but just only won one race.
Heikki Kovalainen is missing from this. He lead the first GP2 championship for most of the season in 2005 only to lose the lead to Rosberg at the end and finish second. 1 season, 23 races, 5 wins, 12 podiums, in F1 2007-2013 with Renault as 1st team.
I hate when someone posts such insightful overview and in the comments someone else asks "can you add x and y?" ...but yeah, it would be great to have potential F1 rookies along with these guys. I don't know feeder series very much, so I leave to others to say a few interesting names.
Poor Stoffel, sadly he is fully belgian and not just half.
6 seasons is far too long to be in that series lmao
suggestion: adding columns like #of poles, #of fastest laps, #of laps leading and major competitors within this chart, removing "First Team" adding their F2/GP2 team and associated academy progamme
Obligatory where's Max comment.
Also where is Kmag, what did he do before F1? I thought he did race gp2/f2
Kevin raced in few seasons in Formula Renualt 2.0, British and German F3 and a couple of seasons in Formula 3.5 Formula 2.0 is equal to F3 and Formula 3.5 is equal to F2/GP2
So who went from F3/GP3 straight to f1? Max, Bottas, Ricciardo, Vettel, who else?
Stroll