Formula 2 returns to action at Jerez de la Frontera

The first official pre-season test of the 2019 FIA Formula 2 Championship will kick off tomorrow at Jerez de la Frontera in Spain. The three-day session will give the teams and drivers time to prepare themselves ahead of next month’s season opener at Sakhir, Bahrain on 29-31 March.

Reigning Champions Carlin will defend their title this season with a brand new line-up made of podium finisher Louis Delétraz and F2 returnee and race winner Nobuharu Matsushita. ART Grand Prix will count on 2018 GP3 Series Vice Champion Nikita Mazepin and multiple F2 race winner Nyck De Vries to fight for the 2019 crown.

DAMS heads into the new season with the experienced pair of race winners Sérgio Sette Câmara and Nicholas Latifi whilst new entry UNI-Virtuosi will field rookie Guanyu Zhou and race winner Luca Ghiotto. PREMA Racing will run with rookie Mick Schümacher and podium finisher Sean Gelael. Renamed Sauber Junior Team by Charouz have bet on two GP3 graduates: Ferrari backed Callum Ilott who previously raced in F2 at Silverstone in 2017 with the former car, and Juan Manuel Correa.

Campos Racing will test with signed driver Jack Aitken who took the Sprint Race win at Barcelona last year, and Dorian Boccolacci who did a handful of races last year and will be looking to impress the Spanish team for a drive. MP Motorsport arrive at Jerez with two test drivers: Jordan King who raced with the Dutch team in 2017, and Richard Verschoor

BWT Arden finalised their line-up last week and will race with Tatiana Caldéron and 2018 GP3 Series Champion Anthoine Hubert, both debuting in the Championship. Finally, Giuliano Alesi will be hard at work with his 2019 team Trident while Ralph Boschung will test with the Italian squad in the hopes for a drive for the rest of the season.

The drivers will run on Pirelli’s medium and soft compounds. For each driver, six sets of the medium tyre will be made available, along with two sets of the soft over the course of the three days.

The pitlane will open at 09:00 on Tuesday morning, and will run until 12:00 before breaking for two hours. The session will restart at 14:00 before ending at 17:00. Wednesday’s sessions will run to the same schedule, while Thursday’s testing will break for just one hour, with the afternoon running taking place from 13:00 to 16:00.