Photos: Alejandro Alonso Lopez
The reveal of the Dallara F2 2024 at Monza wasn’t just providing a first look for media and fans, but more importantly for the teams who had to try to learn as much as they could from getting up close to the car
Formula Scout: What do you make of the new car after after examining it in the paddock?
Rene Rosin, Prema’s team principal: Well, for sure it’s a new car, it’s a new challenge. We are looking forward to have a deep look on the car and start testing next year. And of course, it’s the start of the new cycle and it’s a big job for engineers, teams, mechanics to get used to that as quickly as possible. We will do our best to be ready in the first round in Bahrain.
Giacomo Ricci, Trident’s team manager: I agree with Rene, and the most interesting part for me when you have a new car is the new challenge, because everyone is starting from zero and it would be a tremendous effort for everyone in order to prepare the car properly in the wind tunnel and of course also carry on the development of the car. It will be a big, big challenge for everyone. But I have to say, the car looks amazing and also the new car for me gives an extra motivation and booster to everyone because it’s something new at the end of the day. And I have to say also that new car looks great.
Jeremy Cotterill, MP Motorsport’s team manager: It looks like a nice car. I don’t know too much about it, haven’t seen too many drawings or dimensions or details on it. But from the outside it looks like a nice car.
Not much [can be learned from looking at the show car]. All we’re looking at really is the practicalities of handling the car, in terms of jacks and set-up and what we need to do in terms of preparing to handle the car. So anything that we can get ahead on, and start doing now, will save us time later in the year.
Frits van Amersfoort, Van Amersfoort Racing’s team principal: Well it looks like an Formula 1 car. It looks quite nice, it looks aggressive. And it has for me, old-school, it has a bit of a funny rear wing. But I’m quite sure that Dallara will have thought about it. As far as I know, we get the first car in December so I’m really looking forward to receiving it and having also a look underneath at all the bodywork. Going to be interesting.
Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
FS: What challenges will having a new car pose?
Roland Rehfeld, PHM Racing’s sprorting director: Generally, I think the challenges are for more or less all the teams the same now just to get an idea about the car, you have to build up the new tools, you have to understand the car, you have to go into processes and into your environment, how to extract in a very short period of time, how the car may can work. So we are on that. This is [not too much of] a challenge for us because we have a very stable Formula 2 team. This is very good. We still even have to refresh some points, but it’s a general challenge for everyone and it’s a tight schedule just to get the first car [ready] in January for the shakedown.
Cotterill: It’s always a challenge, and it’s always a race to try and get on top of the balance on the car. But we’re not going to know that until we run. But it’s always trying to gain as much pre–information as we can, and make a test plan, to try to understand how the car works. What’s different, what’s not, mechanically and aerodynamically. You basically start again with a clean sheet of paper and start just trying to make a test plan and then go from there.
Nothing confirmed as to when we get the cars. So that’s why we take the time while it’s here to try to see as much as we can.
Van Amersfoort: Good question, I don’t know. It’s the first time we did it. So we’ll see. In the end, it’s also a race car, so I’m quite confident that for sure quite soon we will know all the tricks. But yeah, it will be different. We have to adapt, we have to change certain things in the truck, jacks, and that sort of things. For us it’s extra work. I think it’s good, it looks quite good, it looks aggressive, so I’m happy with it.
I have not received any [technical] information as far as I know [before this reveal], but I think that’s normal. The car will be available for everybody, at least the first car, and then we will see what it will bring. It will for sure bring a busy winter, after returning from Abu Dhabi. Of course there’s a lot of work to be done. It’s going to be interesting. It looks nice, and I think it will have more opportunities for next year. And I hope that what they say, the overtaking opportunities are bigger, so let’s see.
Sebastien Philippe, ART Grand Prix’s team principal: For the moment it’s too early to say. We have seen the car, we are going to work very hard. I’m confident with all the experience we have and the knowledge we have. Having the same technical director in the team for more than 15 years, we are facing a situation that we have been facing many times in the past. It’s too early to say, but I’m confident.
FS: In the current economic situation, it would be expected that costs increase for next season. Do you think that could become a problem at some point when signing drivers or in the operation of the team?
Van Amersfoort: I’m not too worried about that. There’s huge interest in F2, and the new car just fits into that. Of course all teams have to look at costs, that’s for sure. But I mean that’s also a normal procedure. So yeah, a new car will bring some extra costs, especially in the beginning, but we will overcome it. And I just hope that F2 will be even better next year. And the years after.
Philippe: For sure, we always say it’s too expensive, but at the end of the day, technically, I think we have a very nice new car, very competitive with the new standard in terms of security, which is very important. All this unfortunately has a cost, it’s our job with the promoter, with the FIA, to try to control it as much as possible clearly. We all want to make it cheaper, but everybody is expecting some standard and the standard we are expecting is expensive. It’s true that we need to take care and we are working on that to try to keep it normal.