Former F1 Esports participant Cem Bolukbasi will compete in Formula 2 next year

Turkey’s F1 Esports entrant Cem Bolukbasi will compete in the ‘real’ Formula 2 championship next year. It is the first time that an esports driver has made the switch to that series. Bolukbasi has been racing in other categories since 2019, including GT4 and F3.

Bolukbasi’s Formula 2 debut will be announced on the F2 website. The 23-year-old man will drive for Charouz next year. The driver competed in the F1 Esports Championship in 2017 and 2018, winning a race, among other things. In 2019, Bolukbasi moved into ‘real’ racing when he took part in some races in the European GT4 class for the first time.

In 2020 and 2021 he drove two full seasons in the same championship, and last year he also drove in single-seaters in the Asian Formula 3 Championship and later in the EuroFormula Open with race team Van Amersfoort Racing from Zeewolde. The same team had Bolukbasi test a Formula 2 car in Abu Dhabi at the end of last year.

It’s the first time a former F1 Esports competitor has entered Formula 2, although it’s not completely unheard of for ‘sim racers’ to end up competing in ‘IRL’ racing championships. Bolukbasi will make his debut in Bahrain at the beginning of March, during the winter test preceding the F2 season of 2022. The first race in that championship will follow two weeks later, also in Bahrain.

Cem Bolukbasi already drove in the Asian Formula 3 championship last year