The FIA Formula 2 Championship has released its new car, which will be introduced for the 2024 season, to the public today at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

The new Dallara-designed car, the name of which has not yet been released, mimics the design philosophy implemented in Formula 1 ahead of its 2022 season. Relative to the current F2 car, the new chassis features more aggressively angled front and rear wings with fewer aerodynamic components and slimmer sidepods, all of which aim to reduce aerodynamic wake and boost opportunities for following other cars.

Here it is! The car that we’ll drive into a new era! ?#F2 #RoadToF1 @fia pic.twitter.com/H81MQnxaqa

— Formula 2 (@Formula2) August 31, 2023

A shakedown for the new car was conducted in July by Tatiana Calderón, the only female driver to compete in F2, at the Autodromo Riccardo Paletti, which is located around the corner from Dallara’s headquarters in Varano de’ Melegari, Italy.

Further tests will be conducted later this year by a number of drivers, including reigning F2 champion Felipe Drugovich. Each of the series’ 11 teams will receive one car by the end of December 2023 and another by mid-January 2024, according to a press release from F2 announcing the new car. The teams will be invited to run one car at a shakedown test during the winter before official pre-season testing.

F2 CEO Bruno Michel noted in that press release that the car would be used “for the next three years”, a departure from an FIA World Motor Sport Council announcement published two months ago stating that the next-generation car would be used for six years “for regulatory stability and cost-saving reasons”.

InsideF2 understands that the three-year life cycle mentioned in the press release is the most current information.

What aspects of the car are different for 2024?

The new car measures up at 5284 millimetres in length, 60 mm longer than the Dallara F2 2018. It retains the current chassis’ width of 1900 mm, height of 1097 mm including the FOM roll hoop camera, and wheelbase of 3135 mm. The car’s weight has not yet been published.

The car will have features to accommodate a synthetic sustainable fuel from Saudi Arabian petroleum company Aramco that will be introduced in 2025. Aramco has supplied F2 and F3 with a 55 percent bio-sourced sustainable fuel this season, which will also be used next year.

In terms of electronics, the car will feature Marelli’s new Marvel VCU 480 ECU/GCU, which includes a data logging system, and FOX 442 power supply management unit, replacing Marelli’s previous SRG 480 ECU/GCU and PDU 12-42 power supply management unit.

Other advancements include a reduction in the necessary steering effort and a new steering wheel designed to make the car accessible to a wider range of drivers, though Michel confirmed in a press conference with InsideF2 and selected media after the reveal that the new car would not feature power steering.

The car will conform to the “full FIA F1 2024 safety standards” and will be the first F2 car to have the halo integrated for the entirety of its life cycle. Specific safety advancements include an increase in the load strength of the rollover structure and the survival cell, the addition of a front anti-intrusion panel to the survival cell, increased energy absorption capabilities and oblique impact strength in the front nose area, and cockpit protection for drivers between 1.5 metres and 1.98 metres in height.

Will the new car reduce spray in wet conditions?

That’s the gist of the question InsideF2 posed to both Michel and FIA deputy president for sport Robert Reid in the press conference after the car reveal.

Formula 1’s current generation of cars have come under fire for producing high amounts of spray that reduce visibility in wet conditions, putting the drivers’ safety at risk.

Controversial rain-affected F1 races at Spa-Francorchamps in 2021 and Suzuka in 2022 sparked the conversation at the pinnacle of motorsport. The topic has also come up in junior single-seaters following, among other notable incidents, an opening-lap crash in F2’s abandoned Zandvoort Sprint Race last weekend and the death of 18-year-old Dilano van ’t Hoff last month in a wet Formula Regional European Championship race at Spa.

The FIA has been testing the implementation of a spray guard on the rear of the F1 cars to remedy the problem, but initial indications showed that more work was needed.

“It is a challenge with the new aerodynamics in Formula 1, and it’s something that we’re trying to solve there. Any solution that we get at that level will of course be cascaded down,” Reid said.

“We’re learning throughout the whole pathway. It’s important that we have cars that promote close racing, but also … safety is paramount for the FIA, and to do anything we can to reduce the spray and increase the visibility is going to be something that we are definitely working on.

“I would say there’s no particular solution at the moment, but as you saw in Formula 1, there was the first sort of learning step towards some solutions.

“I know there was a bit of criticism. I read it was a failure. But at any of these situations, you’ve got to try things, and that’s exactly what we did. And it certainly wasn’t a failure because we learned a lot from it, and the next iterations will get better and better.”

Michel echoed Reid’s thoughts but insisted that the responsibility was not solely on the chassis designers.

“I completely agree. I think it’s something that we need to develop while we’re moving,” Michel said. “It’s also something that the tracks have to look into.”

Watch F1’s Announcement Video