2021 Formula 2 Championship

Oscar Piastri, the winner of the 2020 FIA Formula 3 Championship, will join the Formula 2 Championship with Prema Racing. Piastri had won the Formula 3 title with the team.[6] He will fill the seat vacated by Mick Schumacher, who graduated to Formula 1 with Haas.[7]

Formula 3 regular Lirim Zendeli will join the championship with MP Motorsport.[8] Zendeli will replace Felipe Drugovich, who left the team to join UNI-Virtuosi.[9] Drugovich will in turn replace 2020 runner-up Callum Ilott, who left the championship to become a test-driver for Scuderia Ferrari.[10]

Yuki Tsunoda graduated to Formula One with AlphaTauri.[11] He will be replaced at Carlin by Dan Ticktum moving from DAMS.[12]

Nikita Mazepin and Luca Ghiotto will leave Hitech Grand Prix. The former graduated to Formula One with Haas.[13] The team promoted Liam Lawson from FIA Formula 3 outfit and hired Jüri Vips, who substituted for injured Gelael in 2020 at DAMS.[14]

Théo Pourchaire will join the championship on a full-time basis with ART Grand Prix,[15] replacing Marcus Armstrong, who will switch to DAMS.[16] Sean Gelael will leave DAMS and Formula 2 after five consecutive years in the championship and its predecessor GP2 Series to join sports car racing team Jota Sport.[17] He will be replaced by Roy Nissany who vacated a seat at Trident.[18]

Ralph Boschung will return for a full-time drive with Campos Racing, the team he raced with in his first Formula 2 season in 2017.[19] Boschung made one guest appearance with the team in 2020 at the season finale.

HWA Racelab will enter a new driver line-up in Alessio Deledda and Matteo Nannini. Nannini will combine his Formula 2 campaign with an entry in the Formula 3 championship.[20] Artem Markelov, who drove for HWA Racelab in 2020, left the team and the championship.[21]

Pedro Piquet vacated his seat at Charouz Racing System and left Formula 2 after one year in the series, citing financial reasons.[22] Giuliano Alesi will also leave Formula 2 in order to compete in Japanese racing series.[23]

As a consequence of cost-cutting measures, the Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships will adopt a new format. The two championships will alternate between Grands Prix meetings and will no longer appear together on the support race bill. Although this will reduce the number of rounds, both championships will run three races at a Grand Prix instead of two, keeping the overall number of races the same as in previous years. The format change was designed to cut costs for teams competing in both championships by allowing them to rotate staff between each championship.[26][27][28]

As the 2020 championship was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 calendar will feature substantial revisions:

• The Mugello round and one of the rounds at the Red Bull Ring, the Silverstone Circuit and the Bahrain International Circuit were removed from the schedule as these rounds were run in support of one-off Grands Prix.
• The Monaco, Baku and Yas Marina rounds will return after having been cancelled in 2020.
• The Barcelona, Spa-Francorchamps and Hungaroring rounds were removed from the schedule to make way for the new weekend format.
• The championship will make its début at the Jeddah Street Circuit and running in support of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, a brand-new event on the Formula 1 calendar.

The Circuit Zandvoort had been included on the 2020 calendar, but was removed from the schedule in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was initially expected that the round would feature on the 2021 calendar, but it was not included on the provisional calendar. The circuit was included on the Formula 3 calendar instead.

The weekend format is scheduled to be changed with two sprint races held on Saturday and the feature race with mandatory pit stop on Sunday. Qualifying will determine grid of the feature race and the first sprint race; the grid for the first sprint race will be set by reversing the top ten qualifying positions.[29] The grid of the second race will be formed by results of the first sprint race, with top ten finishers reversed. The addition of a third race to the weekend schedule will see teams provided with an extra set of tyres.