Fifty years on from the inaugural European F2 championship, the iconic name is back with two new race series.

While the first – FIA Formula 2 – reclaims its position of yesteryear as the final rung on the motor sport ladder before Formula 1, European F2 Classic is a flashback to the ferocious yet light-hearted days of ’60s to ’80s F2 competition. When an opportunity arose to race the latter, it couldn’t be refused.

Even for a man with the calibre of Motor Sport track tester Dickie Meaden, though, the prospect of racing a Chevron B42 was a daunting one. Spa-Francorchamps was ordinarily wet, a wheel-spinning 300 horsepower was poised beneath the flex of a foot and lined up alongside were 17 other priceless F2 cars.

Experiencing peak-era F2 was a thrill, as Meaden writes in the September issue, available now from our shop in print or digital form.

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