This year at the British Grand Prix I had the pleasure of photographing the stills during the making of a four part documentary about the young and aspiring Formula 2 drivers called ‘Chasing the Dream’ due to air at the end of August on F1TV, it will then be available on other platforms which are to be confirmed.
The idea for the documentary is the brainchild of Martin Turner, former head of F1 Sky Sports and Sky Europe - keen to tell the story about the often forgotten Formula 2 championship and the journey the young drivers take to realise their dreams to become Formula 1 racing drivers and world champions - working with Rory Child from Golden Child TV, Martin is making this a reality.
I took part at Silverstone on the two pre-race days, the Thursday and Friday and the qualifying day the Saturday, photographing the 20 young drivers, behind the scenes, during their studio interviews, the track parade, races, press conferences, press interviews and on the podium. I’m sharing with you a few of the photographs I took during this time just to whet your appetite before you watch the programs.
The documentary also features action from the first three F2 racing weekends in Bahrain, Baku and Barcelona. Part one introduces us to these aspiring F1 drivers, with unique access behind the scenes of the most competitive and cutthroat racing in the world. With contributions from Ross Brawn, Formula 1 Managing Director of Motorsports and Rob Smedley technical consultant for Formula 1.
Current drivers who have made the transition from Formula 2 to Formula 1 are George Russell the reigning FIA Formula 2 champion, Charles Leclerc FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2017 and Lando Norris FIA Formula 2 Vice-Champion 2018.
Formula 2 has 10 teams each with two aspiring F1 drivers.
The team names, driver names and car numbers are shown below, there is not a number 13 as this is deemed an unlucky number, It was used in the early years of the sport but in the 1920s it was dropped after the Delage factory team suffered two fatal accidents with the number in the course of just a few months.
Carlin - Louis Delétraz #1 and Nobuharu Matsushitsa #2
Art Grand Prix - Nikita Mazepin #3 and Nyck De Vries #4
Dams - Sérgio Sette Cåmara #5 and Nicholas Latifi #6
Uni-Virtuosi Racing - Guanyu Zhou #7 and Luca Ghiotto #8
Prema Racing - Mick Schumacher #9 and Sean Galael #10
Sauber Junior Team by Charouz - Calum Illot #11 and Juan Manuel Carrea #12
Campus Racing - Arjun Maini #14 and Jack Aitken #15
MP Motorsport - Jordan King #16 and Mahaveer Raghunathan #17
BWT Arden - Tatiana Calderón #18 and Anthoine Hubert #19
Trident - Giuliano Alessi #20 and Dorian Boccolacci #21
F2 cars are backed by a 500 horsepower engine, which is about half that of a Formula 1 vehicle. Formula 2 vehicles sport an rpm of 10,000rpm while F1 cars hit up to 18,000 rpm.
This gives you a small introduction into the world of Formula 2, the documentary ‘Chasing the Dream’ will tell you a whole lot more. I will be posting updates about the documentary on social media, please feel free to follow me on Instagram @stellascordellis and @stellasms.
A little piece of extra information, I’ll be using the images from this commission as part of a presentation I’ll be giving onboard luxury liners as I take on another role as a cruise ship speaker to educate and entertain passengers about the fascinating worlds my work takes me to. The F2 talk will sit very nicely alongside my talk about F1 featuring photographs from the British Grand Prix 2018.
If you happen to be cruising with Cunard, Fred.Olsen, P & O, Royal Caribbean, Marella or Viking check your speaker program and if you see me listed come and enjoy one of my presentations, I’d love to see you!
Thanks for reading, bye for now…
Stella
