Invicta Racing is the FIA Formula 2 team known for back-to-back championship glory in 2024 and 2025 — but its roots run far deeper than the watchmaker whose name it now carries. The squad raced for years as UNI-Virtuosi Racing (later Virtuosi Racing), built on the Norfolk-based operation Virtuosi Racing Ltd, and across eight F2 seasons (2019–2026) it evolved from a perennial runner-up into the dominant force of the modern grid, winning two Teams' titles (2024, 2025) and supplying the 2024 (Gabriel Bortoleto) and 2025 (Leonardo Fornaroli) Drivers' Champions.
Origins — Virtuosi
The operation traces to Virtuosi UK, founded in 2012 in Carleton Rode, Norfolk, by former Super Nova personnel including Paul Devlin and Andy Roche. From 2015 to 2018 Virtuosi ran the Russian Time entry in the GP2 Series and its successor, FIA Formula 2 — a lineage worth stating carefully: the operational outfit (Virtuosi Racing Ltd) is the same one that managed Russian Time, which is why FOM's modern record line for the team can reach back to that era. The separate "Russian Time" identity, however, was retired when its backing withdrew. From 2019, the team competed under its own banner as UNI-Virtuosi Racing and immediately became a fixture near the top: it finished second in the Teams' Championship in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Those years featured a strong run from Guanyu Zhou, who drove for UNI-Virtuosi from 2019 to 2021 — finishing 7th, then 6th, then a career-best 3rd in 2021 with four wins — before graduating to Formula 1. Team-mate Callum Ilott went even higher, finishing runner-up in the 2020 Drivers' standings.
The rebrand to Invicta
The Invicta Watch Group entered the picture for 2023 as title partner, and the team raced that season as Invicta Virtuosi Racing. Ahead of 2024, Invicta purchased an ownership stake and the entry was renamed Invicta Racing, with Virtuosi still co-owning and operating it. In March 2025, Invicta completed a full acquisition and split from Virtuosi (Roche staying on as a consultant). The rebrand was therefore gradual — sponsor (2023) → part-owner (2024) → full owner (2025) — not a single overnight change.
Back-to-back titles
2024 was the breakthrough. Rookie Gabriel Bortoleto took two feature wins and narrowly beat Campos's Isack Hadjar to the 2024 Drivers' Championship, while points from team-mate Kush Maini helped clinch the Teams' title — the operation's first crown since the Russian Time days. In 2025, Invicta did it again: rookie Leonardo Fornaroli amassed 211 points with four wins and nine podiums to seal the Drivers' Championship in Qatar, as the team defended its Teams' title. That made Invicta the first squad since Prema to provide the Drivers' Champion and win the Teams' Championship in consecutive seasons.
Identity
Invicta Racing today blends a long-standing British race operation with watch-brand backing — a team whose factory continuity (Norfolk-based Virtuosi engineering, personnel like Andy Roche) underpins its on-track results far more than its name changes suggest. From near-perennial bridesmaid in the UNI-Virtuosi years to a two-time double champion under the Invicta name, it is one of F2's defining modern stories.