Background & Championship Format
The series saw the drivers using a chassis that was built at the WilliamsF1 team's headquarters at Grove in Oxfordshire. It was named as the JPH1, incorporating the initials of series boss Jonathan Palmer and Patrick Head, engineering director for Williams. The car was given two shakedown tests at Palmer's Bedford Autodrome by Steven Kane, before the car was officially launched on March 2 at Brands Hatch – the headquarters of MotorSport Vision, who run all the cars in the series.
At each event there were two 30-minute practice sessions, two 30-minute qualifying sessions and two races of varying length; the distances for each announced prior to each race weekend. Points were awarded to the top eight drivers in the race, and were awarded in the same system as Formula One: 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1, and only a driver's best fourteen scores counted towards the championship. That said, no driver had to drop scores in the championship due to all of them having two or more non-points-scoring races.
The winner of the FIA Formula Two Championship receives a full test with the AT&T Williams F1 team, which will be run in such a way as to seriously evaluate the driver with regard to their potential as a Formula One driver. Drivers finishing in the first three places in the final classification of the Formula Two Championship qualify for an FIA Super Licence.
Read more about this topic: 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship Season
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