I’ve been banging on about Formula Two for months now. The car is designed by Williams; the series is run by MotorSport Vision; most races will be support events at WTCC meetings; Eurosport will be broadcasting it. It’s a thoroughly professional endeavour, and no mistake.

But it’s the drivers I’m most excited by. I wrote about them at great length a while back, and today they were all out on track together at Snetterton for the first timed test sessions.

Back in March, my early favourite for the title was Robert Wickens, best known for his performances for Team Canada in A1GP. He finished the day at the top of the timing sheets.

My other picks were: Mirko Bortolotti, Italian Formula 3 champion and man of interest to Ferrari, who finished second; and former GP2 racer Andy Soucek, who ended up fourth.

It’s not all been predictable though. The headline for me is the man who finished the day with the third fastest lap: a certain Alex Brundle. That makes him top of the six Brits, and best of the four drivers coming straight from Formula Palmer Audi. It’s incredible really, given how little experience he has compared to many of the drivers he’s up against.

I’m dubious about reading too much into the specifics of the test times, but what they say to me is that international racing experience isn’t going to be the be all and end all of success in Formula Two, and we will almost certainly get some surprises. Whether that surprise turns out to be Alex Brundle or not remains to be seen.

Plus, with just over a second covering the top 20 drivers, it’s clearly going to be very competitive – though unfortunately at the time of writing only the top ten is available. So, for example, we don’t know where the other Brits are.

It’s also encouraging that Andy Soucek thinks that the car will allow plenty of overtaking.

Yes, it’s looking like Formula Two should be a rather interesting little championship.