Under the eyes of Formula One

Since MotorSport Vision won the FIA tender to organise and promote the new Formula Two Championship in 2008, Williams has been a key partner in the series and the team continue to be involved in, and pay close attention to, the championship.

Each year, Williams offer the eventual F2 champion a full F1 test on one day of Formula One's official rookie testing. This day is run in such a way as to fully evaluate the potential of the F2 champion, and they consequently receive a tremendous amount of track time, engineering support and technical advice. 

Williams' involvement extends past the test however: the team have been responsible for both the design and the subsequent upgrading of the F2 car, which is dubbed the Williams JPH1B. F2 has benefited from Williams' extensive CFD technology, and the car has proved excellent as a result.

Williams are not the only team monitoring Formula Two however: at the end of every qualifying session and race, results are sent immediately to key personnel throughout the F1 world - allowing them to follow the championship, and more importantly its drivers, throughout the season.

"Well the first thing to say is that Williams F1 designed the Formula Two car for MotorSport Vision, who run the FIA Formula Two Championship. It's a very high quality car that was designed to ensure that it was cost achievable for a lot of young drivers and it's an important formula to have when you're bringing on young drivers these days to have a series where you can go and compete for €300,000 instead of €1.5m. Williams thought that was quite an important thing to be involved in from a design point of view, but also to help young talent coming through.

"The thing about Formula Two that gives us a very good baseline compared to F3 and karting is that all the cars are the same. They're prepared by the same group of people, there's one mechanic on each car and they're identical spec. They've all got 425bhp, the engines are tuned and signed off to really tight tolerance - that's very important if you're going to have a single make formula so that you know the drivers you are seeing are all running in the same car.
Sam Michael - Williams F1's Technical Director