The 2021 FIA Formula 2 Championship is one that I don’t want to see Liam Lawson win, and chances are he won’t. After the latest round at Sochi in Russia, the Kiwi driver sits eighth on the points table which should earn him six super licence points (plus more from the DTM Series). All credit to Australian driver Oscar Piastri who continues to lead the points table with two rounds remaining.
The problem for Piastri, and not for Lawson, is that the winner of the FIA F2 champs cannot return and compete in the series again. The only way is up yet Piastri will have no where to go with all the 2022 Formula One seats spoken for.
Piastri is having a stunner! Last season the Australian won the FIA F3 Championship in his rookie year and it looks like he will do the same in 2021, this time in F2. He is almost too good and has shot up the ladder too fast.
“The original plan from even when I got into F3 was two years of F3 and two years of F2. And F3 obviously went better than planned and F2 is also probably going better than planned,” commented Piastri.
While the final F1 seat available, at Alfa Romeo, is still to be confirmed, it is more than likely to go to Piastri’s F2 rivals, either Alpine Academy driver Guanyu Zhou or Theo Pourchaire, who is a Sauber Junior driver.
Lawson would be the first to admit that, for him, another season in Formula 2 can only be a good thing. We have already speculated that he will become a Red Bull F1 reserve driver in 2022 (Lawson likely to take 2022 Red Bull F1 reserve seat) which, along with a second F2 season, will keep him more than occupied and primed maybe for an F1 seat in 2023?
Piastri, may well have to sit 2022 out with the hope, and gamble, that he can get into an F1 team in 2023. As an Alpine Academy junior, he may be appointed as an F1 reserve driver and may get Friday practice time if the FIA confirm a new requirement for teams to allow rookies more track time. Maybe not the best strategy with too many ‘what-ifs’! Time on the sidelines is not a good thing and it is one hell of a gamble that a F1 seat will be available in 2023.
For Lawson, let’s see which Formula 2 team wants him as their star driver for 2022. That is the championship title I want him to win.
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