At the end of a 2024 Formula 2 season with 18 different winners and three more podium finishers, Gabriel Bortoleto emerged as champion after seeing off title rivak Isack Hadjar.
But was this F2's most competitive season or its most random?
In terms of race winners and podium finishers, this was a record-breaking F2 season. Invicta Racing driver Bortoleto's campaign was far from dominant: he only won twice, took pole twice, and led 48 laps (which puts him eighth in that respective table).
Yet the F2 champion, part of the McLaren stable since late 2023 until his release to join Sauber in Formula 1, came in highly rated after winning the 2023 Formula 3 championship and follows in the footsteps of Oscar Piastri, George Russell, and Charles Leclerc by winning back-to-back GP3/F3 and F2 titles on debut.
He gained plaudits in the F2 paddock for his racecraft and mature approach, finishing in the top 10 all but once, and qualifying in the top 10 all but once in 2024.
Was 2024 F2's most competitive season ever?
This has been a wildly competitive F2 season and Bortoleto's lead of just half a point over Campos Racing rival Isack Hadjar heading to Abu Dhabi underscored that point.
The 18 different winners is the record for modern F2, and it's a figure that seems outlandish given there were 13 different winners in 2023 and 12 in 2022.
Just as striking is the record of 21 different podium finishers in 2024, compared to 17 last season and 16 in 2022.
Sprint races do tend to exaggerate how competitive the order really is; the top 10 qualifiers are reversed for Saturday's shorter race and that leads to 'shock' winners, particularly at tracks where overtaking is harder: see Taylor Barnard winning from pole on his first weekend in Monaco and Kush Maini triumphing from second in Hungary.
The number of laps led paints a more coherent picture: 23 drivers led at least one lap in 2024, and champion Bortoleto led 48 laps over 28 races. Only 2023 champion Theo Pourchaire has led fewer laps on the way to an F2 title.
The truth is that nobody managed to dominate this season.
ART Grand Prix's Victor Martins, who was expected to contend for the title, faded into obscurity (and even lost his Alpine reserve role to Paul Aron).
Prema entered the season, the first featuring the latest-generation F2 car, as favourite but ended up finishing fifth overall, although its mid-season improvement in race pace is somewhat muffled by the fact that Kimi Antonelli missed the Abu Dhabi races through illness and Oliver Bearman missed four races to compete in F1.
The biggest turnaround this season came from Campos Racing - which had previously notched a best teams' championship finish of fifth in this era of F2. This season it was second to the impressive Invicta Racing (formerly Virtuosi Racing).
Why didn't anyone dominate?
One could assume that there wasn't a driver worthy of dominating the 2024 F2 season; one could otherwise assume that the grid was ultra-competitive with numerous title contenders.
The grid this year was strong, so it's wise to lean towards the latter theory: Bortoleto, Aron, Hadjar, Antonelli, Bearman, Zane Maloney, Jak Crawford, Franco Colapinto, and season finale winner Joshua Duerksen were among those to impress.
The real reason for this season's unpredictable results comes down to disruption.
Reliability played its part as always. Aron lost out on a great result in Belgium with an engine problem, while Hadjar lost out in both Jeddah races to technical issues.
Mecachrome CEO Christian Cornille said earlier in the year that reliability issues were more severe in 2022 and 2023 due to one particular parts supplier. "Now it's over," he said, adding that many teams still manage to get through one season with one engine.
The Mecachrome V6 isn't faultless, and is still considered temperamental for a spec series such as F2.
For various reasons, including call-ups to other series including F1 and Formula E, illnesses, and funding, drivers constantly swapped in and out this season. This season 32 different drivers made race starts; last year there were 25 and in 2022 there were 29.
The merry-go-round meant drivers had to get to grips with the championship very quickly. Jumping in late in the season, Dino Beganovic managed to get on the pace; the likes of Max Esterson and Niels Koolen struggled a bit more during their brief time.
The new-for-2024 F2 car also introduced ground effect venturi tunnels, with teams having to relearn how to set-up their cars. That meant running the cars as low as possible to maximise downforce produced by the tunnels - with the caveat being that bumps and kerbs could throw off the balance of the car. It's a similar case in F1.
The new-spec F2 car generated greater peaks of downforce than its predecessor, but strayed from those peaks more frequently. That was partly why title favourites struggled.
Yet the Pirelli 18-inch rims also contributed to this.
These large and low-profile tyres are peakier than the cars. With such large contact patches to the track surface they can provide great amounts of grip - but their narrow temperature operating windows often left drivers struggling.
Narrow tyre sidewalls also mean that cornering forces had less of an effect on tyre grip - until the stiff sidewalls do eventually contort and cause drivers to suffer snaps of oversteer.
Set-up was crucial to controlling that narrow operating window - something that Invicta and Campos nailed this season - but the drivers who succeeded were the drivers who best understood the Pirellis.
Tyre management and understanding has been the crux of navigating the modern FIA single-seater pyramid. And it will be the case for years to come.
The title run-in
With half a point splitting Bortoleto and Hadjar entering Abu Dhabi, this was the closest F2 title-run in ever ahead of the last two races. That half point was awarded to Bortoleto in a dead heat for eighth in the Monza sprint race (Bortoleto shared the point with Dennis Hauger).
Bortoleto was consistent throughout, shrugging off reliability issues in Jeddah, a crash in Australia and another reliability problem in the Melbourne feature race. After Imola, Bortoleto's title fight was well underway and he didn't suffer another retirement, with a low of 16th in Hungary.
A well-timed safety car propelled him to a last-to-first victory at Monza, and later in the season he ultimately hung on - shrugging off a five-second penalty for crossing the pit entry under the virtual safety car in Qatar - to win the 2024 F2 title.
Hadjar meanwhile had reliability issues in Jeddah, costing him a result over two races, but showed glimpses of excellence with feature race wins at Albert Park, Imola and Silverstone and Spa, plus a strong Qatar weekend.
Hitech driver Aron had some misfortune with reliability, and there were more points lost from an unfortunate collision with Pepe Marti at Silverstone.
Yet Aron's combative driving has also cost him, particularly in Hungary where he copped two separate grid penalties totalling 10 places for the next round. Silverstone and Monza were non-scoring weekends that hampered his title efforts.
The title battle grinds to a halt
There were three title contenders ahead of the Abu Dhabi F2 sprint with Aron a relatively distant 22.5 points off the lead.
In the sprint race, Hadjar's Campos Racing team-mate Marti took his first win from fourth on the grid. Meanwhile Bortoleto leapt from ninth to fifth early on, in similar fashion to Marti, and passed Joshua Duerksen and Amaury Cordeel to finish second.
Poor positioning at the start left Hadjar sandwiched between Invicta Racing's Kush Maini and Rodin's Ritomo Miyata and he dropped to 12th, then recovered back to sixth where he started. That became fifth when Aron was disqualified for having a DRS gap one millimetre too big.
After the sprint in Abu Dhabi, Bortoleto was 4.5 points ahead of Hadjar. Aron was out of the running and that penalty sent him to the pitlane for the feature race start.
Martins was set to lead from pole, with Bortoleto sharing the front row, and Hadjar starting from third. But the title fight was over as soon as the race began.
"I stalled. I need an explanation. I can't believe all this hard work for that. The worst moment of my life right now," said Hadjar, who was still awaiting that explanation afterwards.
His self pity turned to indignation in-race as Hadjar pleaded with the team to pit him at the same time as Bortoleto to ensure they would at least 'race' on track - even if he was almost two laps down.
Bortoleto's race wasn't clean - a lock-up on his outlap after pitting meant he was passed by Duerksen and Martins - but with Hadjar finishing one lap down in 19th and last, he drove a composed race to second, safe in the knowledge he'd be crowned champion.
"It's one of the best feelings of my life," said Bortoleto after sealing the title.
"We have been through a lot of things since the beginning where we struggled a lot. In Jeddah, Australia - actually a big crash I had - and the team never gave up. I never gave up as well and from that moment on I think we deserved every single point we achieved in the championship."
His attention has since shifted - as Bortoleto will make his F1 debut with Sauber in 2025, partnering Nico Hulkenberg, and got his first run with the team in Tuesday's post-season Abu Dhabi test.
"You need to be surrounded by good people that can help you to achieve your dreams and hopefully I can bring this to [Sauber] next year and to develop them because we know that that's a team that's going through a new project right now with Audi," he said.
"So, we will need to develop a lot of things and hopefully I can be a great - I don't think leader is the right word because l'm a rookie, but together with Nico, we hopefully can do a very good job and achieve many things with Audi in the future."
As for Hadjar, his 2025 plans are as yet unconfirmed - though he remains in strong contention for an F1 promotion with Red Bull's second team.
