
2025 is F1’s most polite title battle ever – Up/Down in Austria
Describing this year's championship race as a 'battle' might be slightly over-egging it, writes James Elson
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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Describing this year's championship race as a 'battle' might be slightly over-egging it, writes James Elson
Lando Norris's wrecked McLaren was some metaphor for his racing aptitude over the last 12 months
When will the FIA take serious action against dangerous F1 driving? asks James Elson
For all the huff-and-puff about strategy at the 2025 Monaco GP, the race showed pitstops aren't F1's main problem there