In a surprise move, Hitech Grand Prix has been granted a two-car team in the 2020 FIA Formula 2 Championship, seeing the series expand to an eleven team grid for the first time.
The British team were only founded recently in 2015 but have been highly impressive in other junior single-seater formula since their inception.
They ran a three-car team in the 2019 FIA Formula 3 Championship and secured an impressive second-place finish in the teams’ standings behind the dominant PREMA team.
They secured four race wins with three coming for Estonian Red Bull junior Jüri Vips, who was the highest non-PREMA driver in the standings, and one for Italian Leonardo Pulcini.
Confirming their entry late means that they are up against it for 2020 as they missed the three-day post-season test at Abu Dhabi in December and the pool of drivers to choose from is far narrower than it would’ve been had the announcement come sooner.
Hitech GP team owner Oliver Oakes understands the challenges ahead for his team.
He said: “I’d like to thank Bruno for the trust placed in Hitech to give us an additional entry. Stepping up to F2 was always something we were aspiring towards, once we had established ourselves in the new era of Formula 3.
“With the new 18-inch rims and some car updates coming to F2 in 2020 it made entering now much more necessary than the end of 2020 where we would be a year behind the learning process.
“Of course, joining the grid this late means we are slightly up against it – but at Hitech we like a challenge! We are under no illusions that it will be a big ask to compete against some very established teams in F2 but I believe in our group and I am really excited for the first event in March at Bahrain.”
Hitech will run numbers 24 and 25 when they take their first laps in F2 at the pre-season Bahrain test on March 1-3.
