Formula 2 reveal the next generation of cars that aim for accessibility with ‘any kind of driver’

Formula 2 revealed the new generation of cars that the championship will race with from 2024 for the next three years. F2 unveiled the new car in the Monza paddock ahead of Round 13 of the season. 

Things are changing for Formula 2 after a new generation of cars has been developed. The 2024 Formula 2 car will be used in next year’s season as well as in 2025 and 2026. Formula 3, however, will remain with the F3 current car for 2024.

The new F2 car will see some significant changes compared to the current version. But the partners of MecaChrome and Dallara are still producing the engine and chassis.

The engine will continue to be a Mecachrome V6 3.4 litre turbo-charge engine. The fuel will continue to be the 55% sustainable fuels, which were introduced for the 2023 season; the hope here is that the championship will be able to use a fully-sustainable fuel by Aramco in 2027.

One of the aims of the new F2 car was for it to bridge the gap to Formula 1 and be closer in terms of design. For this, both the front and rear wing as well as the nose have been designed to produce more wheel-to-wheel racing, much like F1’s current design. There have also been key changes with regards to safety and also accessibility in the 2024 F2 car.

What’s new for 2024?! 🔎🆕#F2 #RoadToF1 @fia pic.twitter.com/dAVf0rFsfv

— Formula 2 (@Formula2) August 31, 2023

An insight into the new F2 car

FormulaNerds attended the official car launch press conference. There, Bruno Michel and Robert Reid, Deputy President for Sport of the FIA spoke about the new F2 car.

When asked about the biggest differences between the current F2 car and the new one, Michel highlighted three things. The F2 CEO explained:

“Number one is safety. There’s been quite a lot of changes in terms of safety directed by the FIA to have all the latest standards available for this car because this car will comply with the 2024 Formula 1 safety standards, which are very very advanced.

“Then we’ve also made quite a lot of work aerodynamically with the FIA’s aerodynamicists to make sure that we will continue to have the thrilling show that we have with F2 on track because it’s extremely important to make sure the fans are following us and to make sure the Formula 1 community are following us as well…”

Michel continued touching on the new systems of the car that have been improved. He said:

“We’ve improved also some of the systems of the car. We’re going to be working on a new ECU. There are a lot of things that are changing as well to make it a bit more developed…

“And as Robert [Reid] said, another extremely key aspect of the development is to make sure that this car, the economy of the car, and the efforts requested by this car, whether it be the steering efforts, the braking efforts, are available to any kind of drivers.”

A new rear wing

The rear wing is also one aspect of the car that is noticeably different. In the press conference, Michel spoke on this when asked by media what the thinking behind it was.

Check out the rear wing on the new @Formula2 car (from 2024 onwards) #F2 pic.twitter.com/6e4tRuOaL6

— Chris Medland (@ChrisMedlandF1) August 31, 2023

Michel said:

“The rear wing itself as a round shape that is quite close to what Formula 1 has at the moment. The big difference is probably what you saw is the flap that is on it. That is quite heavy and big.

“That’s really been done to make sure that with the kind of set up that we have on the car, we can have extremely strong DRS efficiency. That was the main idea behind the development of the rear wing.”

Diversity for all drivers

One key objective with the new F2 car was the accessibility it has. In the press conference, both Michel and Reid drove home the point of the 2024 car being more accessible to any kind of driver – even female drivers.

When asked how it was made more accessible, and whether this included power steering, Michel explained:

“It’s not power steering. We’ve been working quite extensively on this subject with the FIA. And the FIA has come up with quite a heavy stand-out of figures we should achieve in terms of steering effort. We’ve been working on the geometry of suspension to make sure that we were achieving those figures.

“We completely feel that power steering is not needed. But what we’ve done is going to really help drivers with less physical strength, let’s put it that way, than others.

“But it’s not the only thing because we’ve been working on the cockpit, on the economy of the cockpit to make sure it was comfortable for any size of driver. I would say from 150 to 185 more or less. And we want to make sure they will be able to be comfortable in the car.

“We’ve been working on things like the steering wheel because we had female drivers that had hands a little bit too short to be able to really grab the steering wheel. So now we have the possibility to have a thinner steering wheel to make sure that they can grab it.

“And we always have – we haven’t changed it – but we always have the possibility to change also the braking efforts because actually when we did some tests with female drivers on Formula 3 cars, all the comments we had were not at all on the steering effort but much more on the braking effort and the fact that it was more difficult to put quite heavy pressure on the brake.

“So there are always more possibilities of changing the master cylinders and making it easier and if we want we can impose the same setup for everybody which is something that can also make a big difference.”

Testing and a timeline

Tatiana Calderon has already completed a shakedown of the new car back in July. A development programme will also continue to be introduced over the remainder of the year. The 2022 Formula 2 champion, Felipe Drugovich will be a part of this.

All teams are expected to receive one of the new cars before the end of 2023. The second car will be delivered in 2024, around mid-January so they have time to work with it before the season begins.

Headline Image: X @Formula2