Hidden battles of the greats
Formula 2 used to be about more than providing a stepping stone to F1. For three decades it often provided another setting for the world’s best to fight it out
Formula 1 talent at the wheel of Formula 2? With singleseater racing so delineated now, this would seem unlikely to many modern fans.
The very aim of F2 is to discover talent for accession to F1, but in 1948, when F2 began, a more accessible entry into single-seater racing was its purpose. Constructors were expected to make their wares available to all and naturally the best drivers were used by works teams, creating an open door for anyone to compete with the great racing stars of the day. The F1 world championship calendar was much shorter in the 1950s and 1960s, so top drivers appeared in many different categories, including F2.
Today, drivers arrive in F1 untested race-wise in the company of those they are about to encounter. Would they wish for that opportunity – and who from F1 would accept the risk? – if allowed?
“You could go out in your private Lotus or Brabham, as I did, and get an accurate measure of your own talent in a straight fight with Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt or Jackie Stewart,” said sportscar legend Derek Bell in his autobiography My Racing Life, written with Alan Henry. “It was a tremendously valuable experience.”
Battles between great F1 names in F1 are well documented, but there were some epic F2 encounters, arguably where the playing field was more level, that are often forgotten. And occasionally someone from the F2 ranks beat the stars.
During this ‘open’ period there were five iterations of F2. The first was for two-litre engines of any configuration, so in stepped Ferrari with a V12. Supercharging of 500cc was allowed but failed and was soon excluded. The leading grand prix drivers of the post-war period were Jean-pierre Wimille, Raymond Sommer, the pre-war
Auto Union maestro Hans Stuck, Luigi Villoresi, his protege Alberto Ascari and versatile Piero Taruffi. In 1949 Argentinians Juan Manuel Fangio and Jose Froilan Gonzalez arrived, nationally sponsored.
In 1954 the new 2.5-litre F1 made that form of F2 pointless, so a replacement arrived in mid-1956 for 1500cc machines, with a maximum of six cylinders. It provided opportunities to race against Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks, Peter Collins, Jean Behra,
Roy Salvadori and Mike Hawthorn. There was no specified limit to F1 drivers’ involvement, which peaked in 1960.
That year a European Championship had just five rounds including two hitherto established F1 events: the Gp-length Aintree 200 and the classic German GP – because a home car might (and did) win. By then, it wasn’t obvious to the uninitiated as to which formula was present. The Coventry Climax FPF engine was ubiquitous in
all but Porsche and Ferrari works cars and most of F1; an engine swap did the trick. So the formulas were visually and audibly almost identical. A stopwatch might tell you, but not always.
“I dashed off to Syracuse for the F2 race, then the GP of Brussels, in which I had a big carve-up with Moss,” said triple F1 world champion Jack Brabham of 1960 in his book When the Flag Drops. “These F2 races were becoming as important as grands prix.”
This was not supplemental activity at all: it was mainstream. Then that 1500cc limit became F1 for 1961, so 1100cc Formula Junior replaced F2 as the feeder formula, from which F1 ranks were excluded.
A third iteration of F2 arrived for 1964-66 of 1000cc and four cylinders. A demand for 1200cc was ignored – just as well, since these cars might have embarrassed F1 had it been accepted. So world champions Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Brabham and, by 1965, John Surtees were available for attack by F2 regulars. And in 1965 three future world champions joined the F1 ranks: Jackie Stewart straight from F3 to BRM, Denny Hulme with Brabham, and Jochen Rindt joining Cooper.
Come 1966, the three-litre F1 demanded a ‘better’ feeder formula, which came in the form of 1600cc F2 and did the job thoroughly from 1967 onwards. Chris Amon and Pedro Rodriguez joined the ‘F1 in F2’ fun, but the loss of Clark in an April 1968 F2 event at Hockenheim – a race often referred to as ‘minor’, but which had several current or future F1 drivers in the field
– was one of the category’s darkest days.
The new European F2 Championship had been won by Jacky Ickx in 1967 and he promptly became an F1 fixture, so joining the ‘F1 in F2’ clan. Ronnie Peterson, regarded as one of the kings of F2, joined the F1 circus in 1970, and mid-season so did Emerson Fittipaldi, Clay Regazzoni and Francois Cevert. The two-litre era began in 1972, but the F1 factor fell away during the decade.
Through all except the first iteration one name was common: Graham Hill, the most prolific of them, put his reputation ‘on the line’ 18 times in 1967 while also chasing the F1 title and defending his Indianapolis 500 crown. He wasn’t the exception as Brabham, Clark, Rindt and Stewart all made a dozen or more F2 outings that year.
Those named are the ‘royalty’ of F1, but anyone signed to a regular seat in a top works squad (or, in those days, a major private team such as Rob Walker’s) should be classified as a bona fide F1 driver. This expands the ‘F1 in F2’ club to 93 names, with around 1550 entries between them in approximately 350 races. In the 30 years of this culture, which ended in 1978, F1 talent was present in 84% of major F2 races.
None of those are remembered in the world championship history books but they deserve recognition – as an alternative battleground for some of motorsport’s greatest drivers, and for letting rising stars test themselves in a way that is no longer possible.