Alex Brundle's F2 and F3 review: the driver who achieved the 'impossible'

“However, while not becoming champion due to incidents, misfortune and then losing out to Pourchaire at Yas Marina, if you look at the individual drives Vesti put in, he actually is still the standout performer of 2023.”

Vesti was in the thick of an intense title fight before his season started to go slightly awry, the wheels truly coming off his title campaign.

Neither rear tyre was fitted correctly at Zandvoort, leaving the Danish to indignantly spin out of the feature race, this coming after he had crashed out on his way to the grid at Spa.

When Vesti was squeezed onto the grass at Monza by Roman Stanek, resulting in the former hitting the barriers, his title challenge looked over. However, Brundle highlights how things were still close come the season end, saying it all could have been so different.

“It was nip and tuck,” he emphasises. “You’re dealing with an 11-point differential between two drivers at the end of the season. One driver in the wall, the other driver third and fourth in two races [Pourchaire at Monza] is huge when you come towards the end of the year.

“Logan Sargeant hadn’t been confirmed at Williams by this point – you’ve got to wonder if the potential of that seat hung over Vesti’s head.

“Will he spend next year at the back of the Merc garage with the cans on, or look to what would likely be a point of no return in IndyCar or WEC?”

2023 F2 team of the year
ART

Last year the form book was ripped up in F2 when midfield team MP Motorsport secured the teams’ title, garnering most its points from Felipe Drugovich’s successful title charge. It looked like normal service might be resumed when the typically dominant Prema team lined up with Fred Vesti and young gun Oli Bearman, but it was beaten again — by Brundle’s F2 team of the year.

“ART deserve plaudits, and the reason is because they’ve focused in on a young driver in Theo Pourchaire and really got behind him,” he says. “Yes, he’s of the same French nationality, has links to team boss Fred Vasseur and is part of the Sauber Academy, but they’ve bought into him.

“It was great to see the passion in team members’ eyes when they spoke about him.

“The drivers are usually these bizarrely transient entities: ‘There will always be another one next year.’

“It’s very easy for team bosses to have a sort of naturally dismissive attitude, when there are so many drivers that your phone is ringing off the hook.

“So to see a team buy into a driver and his whole career trajectory like that is fabulous – and ART has clearly reaped the rewards.”

2023 F2 race of the year
Abu Dhabi sprint

The title chase came to a thrilling climax in Abu Dhabi, with Vesti needing big points to overhaul Pourchaire. The Danish driver battled for the lead with Enzo Fittipaldi and Richard Verschoor, first place changing hands several times on lap one.

Told to get his elbows out on the team radio after being shuffled down to fourth, Vesti took things up gear by fighting back for a thrilling win in the desert.

“The battling in the final sprint, in Yas Marina, was brilliant,” says Brundle.

“There was a moment where we had the full Red Bull junior line-up, two sets of three-wide, down into Turns 6 and 7.

“Bizarre really, because Yas Marina is not famous for generating that much incredible racing in F1, but it certainly does in F2.

“We’ve had a lot of races like Zandvoort, where there were a load of stoppages, restarting into barnstorming racing as we always do – Monza and Spa also – but in terms of clean racing lap after lap after lap, which is the pleasure to commentate on, that sprint race was the one.”

2023 F2 unsung hero
Victor Martins

Ollie Bearman shot onto the F2 scene in 2023, winning the second-most races out of any driver, but Brundle thinks it’s someone else who deserves more attention for their achievements this year.

“Ollie Bearman impressed with the number of victories [four] but because of his Haas FP1 outings, people know who he is,” he says.

“Victor Martins would be my eventual choice. As the leading rookie in the series, I think in the ART team he might have got a little bit buried by the success of Pourchaire.

“His podium on debut in Bahrain, and another in Saudi after just coming into the F2 championship, taking the feature race win in Silverstone – I think he might well be the unsung hero, with his own team very much focused on his team-mate’s title challenge.”

2024 F2 one to watch
Andrea Kimi Antonelli

Frederik Vesti may well be slightly worried about his F1 future, with another Silver Arrows junior rocketing up the ranks. Young Italian Kimi Antonelli dominated this year’s Formula Regional championship, and has now leapfrogged F3 straight into the second tier series. As Brundle attests, the 17-year-old has raised eyebrows in more ways than one.

“When you look at the testing form of Antonelli, it is wild,” he says.

“He was second to his team-mate, at the end classifications of his first morning of testing – with lots of returning drivers there.

“Put yourself in that position: you’ve literally never driven a turbocharged single-seater before, on a track you’ve never been to before, against a grid of drivers who have all just raced there – and you go second.

“When he moved up from Formula Regional directly to F2 you think ‘That’s a big step, that’s bound to be a flop,” but when you see his testing pace, it’s seriously impressive.”

2023 F3 driver of the year
Gabriel Bortoleto

The F3 championship was this year dominated by a driver mentored by Fernando Alonso, as part of his A14 management group. The F1 legend’s faith has clearly been justified.

“Unlike [the multiple options] in F2, Gabriel Bortoleto is the clear pick in F3,” Brundle reasons. “He’s a confident kid and was the clear champion of 2023 and dominated the series in a way that we haven’t seen for a good while.

“When you come into F3, everybody tells you that basically what he did is pretty much impossible. That pep talk at the beginning of the year is that you’re not going to be at the front every weekend – so give up on that.

“But he had a run of races where he barely slipped out of the top five.

“It’s just impressive. The wins were there, the podiums were there, and the consistency of his performances was incredible.”

2023 F3 team of the year
Prema

While it may not have clinched the F2 title it wanted, Ferrari-affiliated junior powerhouse Prema reasserted its supremacy in F3. Brundle argues that despite not winning the F3 drivers’ crown either, the spread of points across its drivers leaves it as a clear favourite.

“Prema really did the job in terms of consistency, in the number of drivers that they managed to put at the front of the field,” he says.

“If you look at, Paul Aron, Dino Bogdanovich, they were always up there.

“Trident found the magic driver in the shape of Bortoleto, but if you’re going to isolate a team’s performance, you’ve got to look across the group of drivers Prema managed to get to the front of a field.

“You’ve got to be impressed by the team for pushing its guys.”

2023 F3 race of the year
Belgium feature race

“I think the the feature race at the Belgian Grand Prix for F3 was probably the best race of the year,” says Brundle.

“Half the field on slicks, half the field on wets and then the track dries bizarrely slowly.

“The battling involved is extreme, then the wet tyres really start to fall away and you can you can see the drivers struggling – it’s a an interesting winner as well in the shape of Taylor Barnard.”

2023 F3 unsung hero
Gabriele Mini

“I’m going to say Gabriele Mini – his first year in series, he actually rinsed me over the team radio,” says Brundle.

“He missed about three or four apexes in a row in practice in Hungary, and I did what I should never do in the commentary box, and took the mick a little bit, calling him “allergic to apexes”.

“Then he goes and promptly wins the sprint race from pole, before calling me out on the team radio! A great commentary moment.

“A couple of wins on the board, seventh in the drivers’ championship – that’s an good effort in your first year of F3.”

2024 F3 one to watch
Luke Browning

21-year-old Cheshire native Luke Browning has been fighting his way up the ranks for several seasons, winning the 2020 British F4 championship and 2022 GB3 series.

Graduating to FIA F3 for 2023, Brundle points him out as a driver that could make serious waves in his sophomore season.

“There are a lot of returning drivers who I think underperformed in 2023 who could come good next year,” reasons Brundle.

“However I’m going to go for Luke Browning. 15th in the championship, a podium on the board – one to look out for.”