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Formula 2 and Formula 3 aren’t just a series of support races on the Formula 1 calendar. Nor are they simply a place to park top-tier talent until an F1 seat opens up.
Beyond the literal racing action, these Championships serve a crucial role in Formula 1’s innovation pipeline, providing fertile ground to test changes that can influence the future of the sport, from which technical elements are introduced to cars, to which training tools prepares the talent of tomorrow, and even which programming adjustments can elevate the entertainment spectacle.
With so much happening beneath the surface, I sat down with Pierre-Alain Michot, FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3 Technical Director, at the British Grand Prix to discover how he and his colleagues work tirelessly to fuel the future of Formula 1.
Meet Pierre-Alain Michot, the man guiding F2 and F3’s innovation
When Pierre and I met in the Formula 2 and Formula 3 offices, I immediately noticed his calm and matter-of-fact demeanor. An engineer by background, Pierre had moved up the ranks in top-tier racing, starting first at ART Grand Prix before moving to Spark Racing Technology, the company responsible for designing and manufacturing all Formula E cars. It was at Spark where he most recently served as Director of Operations before moving over to Formula 2 and Formula 3 and eventually into his current role as Technical Director.
Pierre’s role at the helm of the Championships is to, in part, ensure there’s a car that enables drivers and teams to grow through the motorsport ladder and to do so while incorporating innovations that move the sport forward.
As Pierre put it, “we always try to be a little bit more advanced in some areas of the car to make sure that the car lasts more than one year, we are a little bit in advance when we introduce it and then we are not far away after a couple of years.”
Delivering on that goal requires constant coordination with a wide range of stakeholders, from teams to technical partners and even with the FIA itself. Each has their own constraints or considerations, such as teams who must work diligently to balance their budgets. For every benefit of a potential innovation there will be drawbacks which Pierre has to weigh up.
“For example, the [sustainable fuel initiative] had no cost for the teams—or actually there was even more savings because they got the fuel free of charge. So in the end it was an innovation that was good for everyone.”
How F2 and F3 approach innovation
But before speaking about specific innovations, we had to first cover the elements that make the F2 and F3 Championships prime candidates for the job. And for that we covered four key areas:
First and foremost is the FIA’s Global Pathway, which presents a clear development pipeline - represented by a pyramid - for drivers to progress from karting all the way to Formula 1. As drivers move up the pyramid, they are presented with new challenges and expected to develop new skills, all in preparation for a hopeful seat in Formula 1.
“When we want to implement a new feature we think about how it will be incorporated in the pyramid,” Pierre said. “So we need to make sure that the drivers are growing and learning with the car as the cars are getting bigger and bigger.”
That means drivers in Formula 3 and especially Formula 2 are skilled enough to handle innovations that Formula 1 drivers would adopt.
On top of the critical development mindset, the F2 and F3 Championships are designed in a manner perfectly suited to testing. They are single-make Championships, meaning all cars are the same (versus F1 where each Constructor builds their car). Driving those cars are 22 and 30 highly-skilled FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 drivers respectively, a much larger number than the 20 F1 drivers active on the grid. And, F2 and F3 race on the exact same circuits and exact same weekends as Formula 1.
Between the mindset, car, drivers, and races, it’s hard to create a better environment for testing innovations that will one day affect Formula 1 (and beyond).
Recent innovations from the F2 and F3 ‘lab’
What good is a testbed, though, if you don’t have meaningful innovations to test? Thankfully for Pierre and his Technical Director predecessors, there have been no shortage. Here are just a few to highlight:
Innovation #1 - The halo and its leap forward in safety
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff famously called the halo’s physical appearance “dreadful” in 2017 as the safety feature neared its debut in Formula 1, but in nearly the same breath he recognized the need to prioritize driver safety over elegance. And regardless of whether you agree with Toto that the halo won’t win a beauty contest (for the record, I like the look), what was ‘beautiful’ were the numbers: the halo would have had a beneficial outcome for drivers in nearly 90% of the serious accidents examined (the remainder of outcomes being neutral).
And so when it came time to prove the halo on-track, Formula 2 became the first support series to adopt it with its F2 2018 car produced by Dallara. Since then, it’s cascaded to the junior Formulas and the benefits have played out on international television, including Lewis Hamilton crediting it for saving his life during the 2021 Italian Grand Prix: “Thank God for the halo,” said the British driver. “That ultimately saved me.”
Innovation #2 - The move from 13-inch to 18-inch Pirelli tires
Formula 2 adopted 18-inch Pirelli tires before Formula 1 did, serving as a two-year R&D lab to derisk and smooth out the transition. That’s because stepping up from 13- to 18-inches meant engineers had to adapt their whole approach to tires: braking systems, thermodynamics, aerodynamics, etc. Thus, being able to gather data from F2, such as how the tire shape changes at different points on track, gave everyone a clear line of sight to plan.
Innovation #3 - Sustainable fuel and F1’s Net Zero Carbon by 2030
If you’ve watched an F1 race in recent years then you’ve undoubtedly seen “Net Zero Carbon by 2030” signs scattered around the track. F1 set out in 2019 to achieve those lofty goals, and one central element of that plan has been a focus on 100% sustainable fuels which all F1 cars will adopt for the 2026 season.
To get there, F2 and F3 were first to work with their fuel supplier, Aramco, to test and learn. According to Pierre, “We did the first step in ‘23, ‘24 with 55% sustainable fuel. And starting from ‘25 we have 100% advanced sustainable fuel.”
Motorsports innovation never stops
It’s worth emphasizing Pierre’s excitement when talking about these biosourced fuels coming to life now, rather than needing five or ten more years. It was a clear demonstration that his role is not just about iterating on the past; rather, it’s about actively building the Championships to deliver a more competitive, more sustainable, and more entertaining future.
And speaking of entertainment, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has been in the press lately talking about potential changes to the F1 race weekend format to attract and retain an evolving demographic of race fans, and his language no doubt draws attention back to Formula 2 and Formula 3. Afterall, there are years of data from these Championships which someone could use to argue for or against racing over shorter distances, or with reverse starting grids, etc.
But for every exciting possibility, Pierre is grounded by a fundamental reality. As he puts it: “In the end, we are always trying to make sure that whatever we do is in-line with our expectations and is safe for the 52 drivers that we send on track every weekend.”
Perhaps that’s the true secret for innovating in motorsports: to lift the sport into the future you must push boundaries while never losing sight of the responsibility on the ground.
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