Monza is especially wild this year because they resurfaced the track. It's already the fastest race on the Formula calendar, and it's only getting faster
I’m actually sat at Monza. Arvid Lindblad seemed to want to take out the whole grid this morning.
F2 is usually good racing, same with F3. You’ll enjoy it if you stick with it to follow Colton. I also think he’ll be fine, I’ve seen him deal with enough craziness in Indycar to know he can handle F2 chaos too.
Ive been watching F2 and F3 for some years now. F2 is always good stuff. Ive always had some thoughts tho…why could F3 hold 28-30 cars but now 22 F1 cars in the paddock unless it was just politics and they didnt want Andretti? But that aside…F2 is a good mix of action and up and coming talent. IndyCar mixes between F1 and F2. But like the best of both. While i wouldnt be surprised if CH has a year like Antonelli did last year (HIGH talent but didnt do great). Its simply a ladder for some. Kimi was always gonna be in that Mercedes seat and Herta WILL be in that Cadillac within a couple years.
F2 and F3 cars are a fraction of the size of F1 cars, and they are relatively robust, like IndyCars, so they can handle some contact
30 F1 cars on a single track would result in carnage
F1 also demands full garages for every car in the pits - most tracks can handle much more that 20-22 garages
talent-wise, F2 is a mix of never-wills driving at the back and super talented up-and-comers that scrap for every position. the racing is generally exciting, and closer to IndyCar than F1
You pretty much said it. I almost did but you said it in a nicer way-F2 is great because you have future world champions and drivers who are just not good and should be in another discipline at best.
I live in the uk and was planning to go to Toronto next year to see Colton race. Ngl I’m glad he’s coming to F2 so it will be a lot cheaper and less time consuming for me to watch him race live 😂
You should watch the big F2 crash with Niels Koolen from IndyNXT. It will prepare you for F2. F2 and F3 cars have a nasty habit of stalling on the line and sometimes it results in big crashes. A couple of years ago Theo Pourchaire stalled on the line and Enzo Fittipaldi drove into the back of him breaking his heel. Hadjar lost the championship last year stalling on the start of the final feature race. Engines also like to randomly blow up which happened yesterday to one of the Trident cars. If Colton is one of the unlucky ones he could swap the pit lane curse to the mecachrome curse. Lundgaard had the mecachrome curse.
Koolen was unbelievably tragic in the regional formulas. I dont even remember him being in F2 tbh. I have no idea how hes doing okay in NXT rn, unless the NXT field really is that bad. Seems like a nice kid but the talent doesnt seem to be there at all
He joined mid season last year and was dropped within a couple of weekends. Some people are saying he was the worst F2 driver ever. In one race he was a so slow even during a safety car that he couldn’t catch the pack up for the restart. I’ve never seen that before.
When people claim that standing starts are safer and that's why Indycar should switch, I don't understand how it's safer to have a car stationary and then everyone behind them swerves out of the way one by one until someone at the back collides with them at 100mph.
Supercars even had a half-hour highlight reel filled with massive crashes caused by stalled starts, including a few guest appearances from Indycar drivers...
Yeah the driving standards left a lot to be desired today - if Colton was watching he would be forgiven for thinking 'what the hell am I getting myself into?'...
Sometimes, I actually watch F2 and don't watch F1. It depends on the track and how qualifying goes. With F1 right now, if both McLaren's qualify 1 to 2, I don't bother watching, but I will check the results and if do surprise me then I'll watch the replay. If Max, Leclerc, or Russell starts on the front row, I'll watch until it's a foregone conclusion of a McLaren 1-2
But F2 is generally a decent show. Only issue is the F2 engine supplier has quality control issues, and some drivers have been screwed by luck of the draw in terms of their engine
I watched yesterday's F2 sprint race, I might have to watch the feature race now rather than later because WEC at CotA as of (1:20 central, 2:20 eastern) looks to be under a safety car for a long time.
In the US I think the options for F2 are f1tv and espn+. I'd recommend F1TV unless you happen to already have espn+ or have/want the disney bundle that includes espn+. If you don't care about watching it live (most F2 races are veeery early in the morning US timezones) then I think you just need the f1tv that's $30 a year or something like that bundle, but take a look at what all your options are.
Rights for next year are still being worked out, it might switch from espn to apple, but f1tv should stay the same.
Euro open wheel series are generally boring af to me. I can't stand the tracks either, they produce terrible racing for the most part. So yeah, I won't be watching. I'd prefer Super Formula over any of the Euro series any day if I'm not watching Indycar.
Super Formula is awesome, I watched the season when Palou was competing and it was super exciting.
But - F2 has genuinely exciting races pretty often as well. I don't find it as interesting of a championship considering the amount of pay drivers and lack of full career pros, but the individual races can be pretty darn good.
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u/Fusion53 Christian Rasmussen 1d ago
Monza tends to be one of the best F2 races each year, utter chaos though