Video: Side-by-side comparison of F1 v F2 v F3

It’s often difficult to judge quite how fast a Formula 1 car is compared to the lower categories; Formula 2 and Formula 3, but wonder no more…

The official Formula 2 account posted a great comparison video showing the pole position laps from each series around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Top is Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who took pole with a time of 1:15.584, followed by F2’s Uni-Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou, who took third on the grid with a 1:28.601 (two-tenths down on Callum Ilott’s pole time) – a massive gap of over 13 seconds! That time was 10 seconds slower than 20th-placed Nicholas Latifi in the Williams.

At the bottom of the video is Oscar Piastri in his PREMA Racing F3 car, who was fourth fastest with a time of 1:33.171 (0.197s slower than Logan Sargeant’s pole time). That puts him 18 seconds down on Hamilton’s time and a respectable 4.570s down on the F2 lap.

Piastri’s time was just three seconds down on the slowest F2 qualifying time set by Guilherme Samaia.

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But what’s most noticeable is how difficult the F2 and F3 cars are to drive compared to the ‘on rails’ Mercedes F1 car, whilst the engine noise is probably what you’ll notice next, thanks to the naturally-aspirated 3.4L V6 in the back of the F2 and F3 cars, compared to F1’s hybrid-turbocharged 1.6L V6 engines.

Check out the video below.