2010 FIA Formula Two Championship

The 2010 FIA Formula Two Championship season was the second year of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The championship began on 18 April at Silverstone and concluded on 19 September at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, after nine double-header rounds.

For most of the season, the championship battle revolved around a pair of British drivers, returning driver Jolyon Palmer and Formula Renault UK graduate Dean Stoneman. Stoneman and Palmer won eleven of the season's eighteen races – Stoneman won six and Palmer five – but more podiums for Stoneman helped him in the long run, and eventually sealed the championship title, and a prize test for the Williams F1 team, with a race to spare.^[1] Palmer finished a comfortable second place in the standings, 42 points behind Stoneman and 85 ahead of his nearest rival.

Third place in the standings remained a five-way battle until the final race with newcomers Sergey Afanasyev of Russia, another British driver Will Bratt and Belgium's Benjamin Bailly, as well as returnees Kazim Vasiliauskas of Lithuania and Austria's Philipp Eng all in contention for the remaining FIA Super Licence awarded to the top three championship finishers. Despite not winning a race, it was Afanasyev that prevailed, scoring points in all but three races including four podiums. Vasiliauskas' only victory of the season came in the final race of the season in Valencia, and allowed him to jump from seventh pre-race to an end fourth place in the standings, four points behind Afanasyev. Bratt finished fifth, winless but with four podiums, ahead of three-time winner Eng by two points and Bailly, a winner at his home round of Zolder was 12 points further behind. Eighth-placed Nicola de Marco was the only other race-winner on the season, winning at Brno and Valencia.

As announced at the FIA's World Motor Sport Council meeting in December 2009, Formula Two cars in the 2010 season had a base power of 425 brake horsepower (317 kW; 431 PS), up from 400 brake horsepower (298 kW; 406 PS) in 2009.^[2] The overboost also increased from 50 brake horsepower (37 kW; 51 PS) to 55 brake horsepower (41 kW; 56 PS), giving a maximum power of 480 brake horsepower (358 kW; 487 PS).^[2] Races were also extended to 40 minutes in duration,^[2] and implemented the 25–18–15–12–10–8–6–4–2–1 point-scoring system as was introduced to the 2010 Formula One World Championship.^[3][4]

The number of drivers admitted to the series had been expected to increase to 30.^[2] However, this was altered back to 24,^[5] with only 22 drivers appearing on the Silverstone entry list.^[6]

No.	Driver	Rounds
2	Will Bratt[7]	All
3	Jolyon Palmer[8]	All
4	Benjamin Bailly[9]	All
5	Ricardo Teixeira[10]	All
6	Armaan Ebrahim[11]	All
7	Ivan Samarin[12]	All
8	Plamen Kralev[13]	All
9	Mihai Marinescu[14]	All
10	Benjamin Lariche[15]	All
11	Jack Clarke[16]	All
12	Kelvin Snoeks[17]	1–5, 7–9
14	Sergey Afanasyev[18]	All
16	Ramón Piñeiro[19]	9
17	Johan Jokinen[20]	1–3
19	Nicola de Marco[21]	All
21	Kazim Vasiliauskas[22]	All
22	Johannes Theobald[23]	8–9
24	Tom Gladdis[24]	1, 6–7
26	Parthiva Sureshwaren[25]	1–6
27	Paul Rees[26]	1–4
28	Ajith Kumar[27]	1–3
	Julian Theobald[28]	6–8
33	Philipp Eng[29]	All
48	Dean Stoneman[30]	All
77	Natalia Kowalska[31]	1–7, 9

Entering FIA Formula Two Championship

• Russian drivers Sergey Afanasyev – who was International Formula Master runner-up – and Ivan Samarin made their debut in the series.
• Formul'Academy Euro Series champion Benjamin Bailly graduated to the championship.
• Euroseries 3000 champion Will Bratt debuted in the series.
• Johan Jokinen switched from the Formula 3 Euro Series to the championship.
• After all taking a year's sabbatical, Natalia Kowalska, Ajith Kumar and Julian Theobald all returned to racing competition.
• International GT Open driver Plamen Kralev switched to Formula Two.
• Benjamin Lariche, who had a dual programme in the Formula Renault Eurocup and the Formula Renault 2.0 West European Cup in 2009, joined the championship.
• Mihai Marinescu, who competed in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series with Interwetten.com Racing, joined the championship.
• Formula Palmer Audi graduates Ramón Piñeiro and Paul Rees moved into the series.
• Kelvin Snoeks, who had a season in International Formula Master joined the series' grid.
• Formula Renault UK driver Dean Stoneman made his series debut.
• A1 Grand Prix driver Parthiva Sureshwaren moved into the series.
• After competing in the GP2 Series in 2009, Ricardo Teixeira switched to the FIA Formula Two Championship.

Leaving FIA Formula Two Championship

• Third-placed Mikhail Aleshin returned to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series with Carlin.^[32]
• Mirko Bortolotti joined the Ferrari Driver Academy and moved into the GP3 Series with the Addax Team.^[33] Robert Wickens and Tobias Hegewald also moved to the series.^[34][35]
• Alex Brundle switched to the British Formula 3 Championship with T-Sport.^[36]
• Natacha Gachnang joined the newly created FIA GT1 World Championship with Matech Competition.^[37]
• Pietro Gandolfi moved into the Italian Prototype Championship.
• Ollie Hancock switched to the World Sportscar Masters series.
• Sebastian Hohenthal, Jens Höing, Jason Moore and Germán Sánchez all retired from auto racing.^[38][39]
• Carlos Iaconelli and Edoardo Piscopo switched to Auto GP with Durango and DAMS respectively.^[40][41]
• Julien Jousse moved to Superleague Formula.
• Henri Karjalainen moved into the Finnish GT3 Championship.
• Miloš Pavlović took a two-year hiatus.
• Champion Andy Soucek became Virgin Racing Formula One test and reserve driver.
• Henry Surtees died in a racing accident during the series' 2009 event at Brands Hatch.
• Tristan Vautier switched to the Star Mazda Championship with Andersen Racing.

A nine-round calendar was published on 21 October 2009.^[42] The series ventured outside of Europe, racing in Marrakech, after being an all-European series in 2009.

Round		Circuit/Location	Country	Date	Supporting
1	R1	Silverstone Circuit	United Kingdom	18 April	Stand-alone event
	R2
2	R1	Marrakech Street Circuit	Morocco	1 May	FIA WTCC Race of Morocco
	R2			2 May
3	R1	Autodromo Nazionale Monza	Italy	22 May	FIA WTCC Race of Italy
	R2			23 May
4	R1	Circuit Zolder	Belgium	19 June	FIA WTCC Race of Belgium
	R2			20 June
5	R1	Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portimão	Portugal	3 July	FIA WTCC Race of Portugal
	R2			4 July
6	R1	Brands Hatch, Kent	United Kingdom	17 July	FIA WTCC Race of UK
	R2			18 July
7	R1	Masaryk Circuit, Brno	Czech Republic	31 July	FIA WTCC Race of the Czech Republic
	R2			1 August
8	R1	Motorsport Arena Oschersleben	Germany	4 September	FIA WTCC Race of Germany
	R2			5 September
9	R1	Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia	Spain	18 September	FIA WTCC Race of Spain
	R2			19 September

Round		Circuit	Pole Position	Fastest Lap	Winning Driver	Report
1	R1	Silverstone	Jolyon Palmer	Jolyon Palmer	Jolyon Palmer	Report
	R2		Philipp Eng	Philipp Eng	Philipp Eng
2	R1	Marrakech	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman	Report
	R2		Philipp Eng	Dean Stoneman	Philipp Eng
3	R1	Monza	Jolyon Palmer	Johan Jokinen	Jolyon Palmer	Report
	R2		Jolyon Palmer	Mihai Marinescu	Jolyon Palmer
4	R1	Zolder	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman	Report
	R2		Benjamin Bailly	Sergey Afanasyev	Benjamin Bailly
5	R1	Algarve	Jolyon Palmer	Jolyon Palmer	Jolyon Palmer	Report
	R2		Jolyon Palmer	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman
6	R1	Brands Hatch	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman	Dean Stoneman	Report
	R2		Kazim Vasiliauskas	Dean Stoneman	Philipp Eng
7	R1	Brno	Dean Stoneman	Nicola de Marco	Nicola de Marco	Report
	R2		Dean Stoneman	Jolyon Palmer	Jolyon Palmer
8	R1	Oschersleben	Sergey Afanasyev	Nicola de Marco	Dean Stoneman	Report
	R2		Dean Stoneman	Kazim Vasiliauskas	Dean Stoneman
9	R1	Valencia	Nicola de Marco	Will Bratt	Nicola de Marco	Report
	R2		Kazim Vasiliauskas	Kazim Vasiliauskas	Kazim Vasiliauskas

Pos. Driver SIL MAR MNZ ZOL ALG BRH BRN OSC VAL Points 1 Dean Stoneman 2 Ret 1 2 2 4 1 3 11 1 1 12 2 2 1 1 9 3 284 2 Jolyon Palmer 1 2 Ret 5 1 1 2 2 1 2 8 Ret 5 1 3 12 7 13 242 3 Sergey Afanasyev 3 6 8 7 Ret 2 4 15† 9 12 6 5 3 4 4 3 5 5 157 4 Kazim Vasiliauskas 5 7 10 4 3 Ret 3 7 4 Ret 11 Ret 11 3 2 2 Ret 1 153 5 Will Bratt 6 5 Ret 3 4 3 14 5 Ret 5 4 3 8 10 6 7 2 15 144 6 Philipp Eng 4 1 2 1 11 Ret 15 12 15 6 10 1 6 18 7 9 4 11 142 7 Benjamin Bailly 11 11 Ret Ret 6 6 6 1 2 3 13 11 4 5 5 5 8 9 130 8 Nicola de Marco 9 10 Ret Ret Ret Ret 10 Ret 5 7 7 4 1 6 9 15 1 Ret 98 9 Jack Clarke Ret 4 Ret Ret Ret 12 Ret 4 3 Ret 2 8 Ret 9 12 DNS 16 2 81 10 Armaan Ebrahim 8 9 6 6 Ret 5 5 Ret 7 Ret 9 7 Ret 13 11 10 3 7 78 11 Mihai Marinescu 7 8 Ret 14 5 16 8 6 12 4 12 6 16 11 13 6 13 6 68 12 Ivan Samarin DSQ 15 4 Ret 12 8 7 8 13 8 3 9 14 16 Ret 8 10 4 64 13 Kelvin Snoeks 12 Ret 3 9 13 DSQ 11 10 Ret Ret 7 8 8 4 12 8 48 14 Benjamin Lariche 10 19† 9 10 8 9 Ret 9 8 10 14 10 10 7 Ret 11 6 14 33 15 Tom Gladdis Ret Ret 5 2 12 12 28 16 Ricardo Teixeira 17† 14 5 Ret 16† 13 9 Ret 6 Ret 16 16 9 Ret 10 16 14 Ret 23 17 Johan Jokinen Ret 3 Ret Ret 7 Ret 21 18 Paul Rees 13 13 7 8 9 7 13 13 18 19 Natalia Kowalska 14 12 Ret 11 Ret 14 Ret 11 10 9 15 13 Ret 14 Ret 16 3 20 Plamen Kralev 15 17 12 12 10 11 Ret 14 Ret Ret Ret 15 15 17 15 14 17 17 1 21 Parthiva Sureshwaren 16 16 11 Ret 15 10 12 Ret 14 11 18 14 1 22 Ramón Piñeiro 15 10 1 23 Johannes Theobald 16 13 11 12 0 24 Ajith Kumar 18 18 13 13 14 15 0 25 Julian Theobald 17 17 13 15 14 Ret 0 Pos Driver SIL MAR MNZ ZOL ALG BRH BRN OSC VAL Points

Colour Result Gold Winner Silver Second place Bronze Third place Green Points finish Blue Non-points finish Non-classified finish (NC) Purple Retired (Ret) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Did not pre-qualify (DNPQ) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Withdrew (WD) Race cancelled (C) Blank Did not practice (DNP) Did not arrive (DNA) Excluded (EX) Bold – Pole Italics – Fastest Lap † – Retired, but classified

• The official website of the FIA Formula Two Championship