Juan Pablo Montoya exposes 'ridiculous' offers being made for F2 seats

Former F1 star Juan Pablo Montoya has hit out at the 'ridiculous' figures some drivers are offering up just to be part of an F2 team.

The junior series is the last step on the road before F1, with a number of young drivers battling to be noticed, but the costs associated with getting a seat in the sport are higher than ever.

Drivers typically need to bring either major sponsorship or personal wealth (or both) to the table just to get a single season in F2, with the BBC putting the approximate cost of one season of F2 racing at £2-2.3m earlier this year.

Not all drivers end up needing to bring in multiple millions themselves – some teams will often find a driver with sufficiently heavy financial backing that they offset some of the cost for a less well-funded but promisingly quick driver – but with competition hotting up on and off the track, the numbers look alarming for anyone without a lot of zeroes in the bank balance.

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Montoya: F2 money numbers are ridiculous

Montoya, the only driver this century to win races in F1, IndyCar and NASCAR, has a son who is currently trying to make his way in motorsport.

21-year-old Sebastian is currently in his second season in F2 with Prema Racing, outperforming team-mate Mari Boya so far this season as the last two rounds approach but still stuck down in 17th in the championship.

The elder Montoya gave an enlightening interview to AS Colombia this week about the costs associated with supporting a driver through the junior ranks, calling some of the money on the table 'ridiculous;.

"Do you know one thing that's happening a lot?" he asked. "There are more and more drivers who have a lot of money, and the way they're buying seats is ridiculous. You have no idea. If you know the numbers people were offering for F2 seats, it's ridiculous."

He also discussed how a wider spread calendar – as recently as ten years ago, there were just two races outside of Europe (or three, depending on how you classify Azerbaijan), whereas that number has risen to five (or six, with Baku) in 2026 – has raised operational costs for F2 teams.

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