Classic F2
F2 is back and so is Sean Gelael, following his strange spine fracturing accident, which means goodbye Vips. Hughes is also out as F2 makes way for its youngest entrant ever in the form of surprise F3 runner-up Théo Pourchaire. Surely a nice warm-up for his 2021 season. Other changes since we last raced include Dan Ticktum’s hair colour and a few driver announcements, but nothing of note…
Practice: Classic 2020
In another classic 2020 move, it was raining in the desert (actually it had stopped raining at the start of practice, but I don’t let facts get in the way of my narrative). Anyway, after a weird delay due to “last minute tweaks to the circuit,” whatever that means, the session was finally underway, except no one seemed to be ready, as they all made a last minute scramble from the F2 paddock to the F1 pitlane.
Just ten minutes in, Markelov was the first to spin, losing it all on his own and stranding himself in the middle of the track, causing a red flag. After he had got out and walked back to the pits, his car decided it wanted to do the same and began rolling backwards down the road, stopped only by the barrier, which it comically bounced against like a very bouncy thing.
It was only another ten minutes before Sato pulled a Markelov, spinning at the last corner and bringing out the red flag, although his car stayed put allowing the marshals to easily clear it away. With only 15 minutes to go, they had all barely done any laps, and just as they were getting going it did actually start to rain, which may or may not have been the cause of Nissany’s Markelov/Sato-esque spin. He did at least manage to keep the engine running, which everyone must have been relieved about, except Daruvala and Tsunoda, who nearly got taken out by Nissany as he rejoined the track.
The rest of them sort of made it round without too much trouble (well, except Ilott, Mazepin and Lundgaard who all nearly lost it), with the Carlins ending the session in second and third and Mazepin fastest of them all.
Qualifying: Classic Tsunoda
Qualifying was probably just a waste of time, as the Quali-King Callum Ilott set a time half a second faster than anyone else within ten minutes of the session starting. They should just stop doing qualifying altogether, stick Ilott on pole position and let the rest of them have a mini race from the end of the pitlane to the starting grid to decide the order. Top quality suggestion for the new weekend format. You’re welcome FIA.
Tsunoda certainly would have been better off just giving the whole thing a miss, as he joined the ranks of Markelov, Samaia and Nissany, spinning at the last corner, and despite his best efforts to free roll his car down the hill to the pitlane, he eventually needed help from the marshals, ending his day. All that was left was for him to scream “what the fuuuuuuuuuuuuccckkk!?” down his radio. Classic Tsunoda. Red flag.
After Tsunoda had been wheeled away, as hard as they tried, no one could get close to Ilott’s time, but that probably didn’t bother Alesi, as the forgotten Ferrari Driver Academy member (yes, he is one) was having the best qualifying of his (F2) life, until his car set on fire and he had to stop at the side of the track, shouting at the fire marshals to hurry up before his record sixth place literally went up in flames (happily his car did survive and he got to keep his place). Alesi’s breakdown, with only just over a minute of the session left to go, meant an end to the proceedings, leaving Ilott on pole (not that anyone was going to beat him anyway), Drugovich second and Ticktum third. Mick hoping-to-wrap-up-the-championship-this-weekend Schumacher was only a lowly 10th.
In the press conference, Ticktum described practice as having been carnage, Ilott talked about how he knew what he was doing next year, but wasn’t going to say what he was doing next year, before subsequently (on Monday) announcing what he would not be doing next year (i.e. F1), and the giantness of Drugovich’s mask was basically too distracting, so who knows what he said?
Feature Race: Classic Drugovich, classic Schumacher
With Schumacher starting so far back, this was Ilott’s chance to keep his championship prospects alive and he knew it. His primary concern was apparently not fucking up his start, because when you fuck up a start “it’s a long race.” He should know. Ticktum said he also didn’t want to do anything to fuck up Ilott’s championship, but that he would race him. Drugovich didn’t offer such reassurances.
Ilott actually made a good (enough) start, almost managing to keep the lead, but Drugovich was having one of those classic Drugovich weekends where he’s just inexplicably really good, so he jumped ahead. Schumacher also pulled one of his now classic moves of instantly overtaking everyone at the start as if they weren’t even there, going from tenth to fourth like it was no trouble at all. Fourth wasn’t enough though and he soon had his sights set on Armstrong (a strong weekend for the forgotten Ferrari Driver Academy members) and the two battled it out, switching places until Schumacher had to resign himself to staying behind Armstrong for fear of crashing and losing all those championship points.
Ticktum was still trying to recover from his awful start (he dropped from third to eighth), but had to contend with passing best friend and fellow Williams Driver Academy member Nissany. Ticktum did so, in a great move around the outside. Nissany didn’t think it was great though, complaining that “Ticktum is weaving”, which was pretty polite compared to their previous encounter when Ticktum called Nissany an idiot.
Up front, Drugovich was doing his thing and had pulled out a three-second lead, while Ilott was having some trouble on his medium tyres. Third-place Armstrong and his hard tyres were doing fine and he breezed past his housemate with no trouble at all (and some DRS help). There was no such mates overtaking rates for Schumacher though as he caught up to the struggling Ilott. Despite having no real chance of defending the place, Ilott did his best anyway, until Schumacher eventually got by, followed by a fast overtake on Armstrong who had made a mistake up ahead. Come on Marcus, you’re supposed to be helping Callum out here.
Only a short way into the race and all the drivers were soon on the radio complaining about their tyres. They are F1 drivers in training after all. Particularly vocal about wanting to pit for new tyres was Ticktum, “we need to get off this tyre” he complained, which was a shame because he was on the alternative pit strategy and needed to stay out a million laps more if he was ever going to finish the race. As the normal strategy people all pitted, Drugovich managed to keep his lead over Ilott, but only just, as Drugovich came out of the pits just ahead of Ilott (who had pitted a few laps earlier). There was a bit of a fight, which Ilott looked to have won for a moment before Drugovich got his tyres up to temperature and went for a definitive overtake to regain the lead.
Schumacher, meanwhile, had also pitted, coming back out in sixth place behind Shwartzman, who he promptly DRS’d past and nearly took out as he cut across him, because Schumacher has no shame when it comes to cutting across his teammate and crashing him out of races. Luckily for Prema, both cars remained intact and Schumacher was free to carry on up the road to catch and pass Armstrong for fourth place (again). Only Daruvala (I have no idea how he was there) stood in between him and Ilott now.
Mid-field, Tsunoda had gone from the very back of the grid up to 15th, which quickly became 14th in an aggressive overtake on Piquet that looked both terrifying and cool. He then continued on to pass both Aitken and Lundgaard at the same time, quickly followed by Alesi, Gelael, Ghiotto and Ticktum, and was all of a sudden in eight place (aka reverse grid pole for the Sprint Race), which most would probably consider a good day’s work, but which wasn’t enough for Tsunoda who continued on to swiftly overtake Shwartzman and Armstrong for sixth place. Clearly no one told Tsunoda that he was supposed to be struggling with tyre degradation.
While Tsunoda had been overtaking the entire field, Schumacher had been edging slowly closer to Daruvala for the final podium spot. However, Daruvala was unsurprisingly not for giving up his maiden podium so easily and they had a few scary moments. With a crash looking inevitable it was probably lucky for both of them that they ran out of laps. Daruvala got to keep his podium, and second place Ilott got to keep the championship alive. Felipe “I won by 14 seconds” Drugovich got to progress from “random guy who surprisingly wins sometimes” to proper F2 talent.
Sprint Race: Classic last-lap heartbreak
Ticktum saved everyone from the usual “I wonder if anyone will do a pitstop during this Sprint Race, even though they don’t have to, but it’s sometimes quicker [insert reminiscing about Charles Leclerc’s 2017 win]” speculation, by asking his engineer on the radio if they were going to stick to the plan with the pitstop. “Yeah,” his engineer confirmed. Alright then.
Shwartzman was starting from pole, with Armstrong in second and Tsunoda in third. Armstrong said he was worried about the people behind him, which was totally justified as he had Tsunoda behind him, albeit not for long, as Tsunoda jumped straight past him and almost made it past Shwartzman as well, until Yuki locked up, got a puncture and had to pit. Classic no-middle-ground, zero or hero, Tsunoda. Tsunoda’s demise left Shwartzman some breathing space and he soon pulled out a two second lead, while Armstrong was left to his own devices in second place, as behind him was Daruvala who was busy carrying on his battle from the Feature Race with Schumacher. However, Jehan kept the lead as it wasn’t long before Schumacher had to switch his focus from Daruvala in front of him to an incoming Mazepin behind him. Mazepin and Schumacher switched places several times and Mazepin nearly ran into the back of Schumacher as Mick attempted to block him. It was the stuff of nightmares (if you’re Guenther Steiner having just announced these two as your drivers for 2021), but of course it’s different when you’re in the same team, it’s not like either Schumacher or Mazepin would ever crash into their teammates… Eventually Mazepin got past Schumacher, before also going on a charge past Daruvala for third.
Behind Schumacher, sixth-place Aitken found himself in the awkward position of being in a championship battle sandwich, with Ilott just behind him. Desperate to gain points on his rival, Ilott was in a hurry to get past Aitken, which wasn’t an easy task, but he eventually managed to go around the outside of Aitken. It was aggressive and great, but the Ilott/Schumacher showdown had to wait as Théo Pourchaire’s fire extinguisher went off in his car (which is apparently becoming an increasingly common occurrence) and he had to pull to the side of the track, triggering a Safety Car.
After a brief pause, the battle for the championship was back on, with all the cars bunched up after the Safety Car period. As they all headed into a corner, Schumacher locked up and went wide, Ilott sort of went for it but then realised he was going to hit Schumacher, tried to take avoiding action, locked up himself and ran straight into the back of Daruvala, who was just ahead of them both. Daruvala was out. Ilott’s front wing was damaged (and he got a drive-through penalty) and Schumacher could relax for a moment. A Virtual Safety Car was called to deal with the necessary tidy up.
With all the safety cars and VSCs there had been lots of pitstops. Not least from Ghiotto, who seemed to be eternally in the pits, until eventually just never coming out and retiring from the race. Armstrong, in second place, probably wished he had pitted, as he seemed to be struggling, locking up and letting Mazepin past him. “Jesus Christ…mumbling about tyres”, he complained, before having a side-by-side battle with Piquet, who I can only assume had made it so far up because everyone had pitted in front of him.
For a moment it looked like Armstrong also needed to worry about Schumacher coming up behind him, but that threat was neutralised by Zhou, who sailed by Schumacher for fifth place, at which point Schumacher’s engineer told him to stop losing places. Lundgaard also tried to have a go at passing Schumacher, but heeding his engineer’s words, Schumacher put up a good fight. Despite several lunges and what looked like contact, Lundgaard couldn’t get by. All this allowed Drugovich to catch up with them and start doing to Lundgaard exactly what Lundgaard had just done to Schumacher. This probably would have continued for the rest of the race, but Delétraz, having previously stopped for new tyres, suddenly arrived and flew by Drugovich, Lundgaard, Schumacher, Zhou and Armstrong, and was in pursuit of his teammate Piquet for the final podium position.
However, the teammate podium showdown never materialised, as on the penultimate lap, Piquet suddenly lost power and dropped right back, instantly losing any hope of keeping his first F2 podium. That wasn’t the only late drama though, as on the last lap, Aitken’s trye gave up, putting him out the race, and Lundgaard had a resurgence, or rather Schumacher had the opposite of a resurgence, where he locked up, resulting in Lundgaard almost hitting him. Luckily for both of them, it was fine, but Lundgaard did make it through to take sixth place, behind Zhou, Armstrong, Delétraz, Mazepin and easy winner Shwartzman, who had no clue how much drama happened behind him.
Classic down-to-the-wire championship standings
Ilott’s points haul from Qualifying and the Feature Race meant that the championship would now be decided at the final round, which so happens to be taking place on the most 2020 circuit of them all, the Bahrain oval-that’s-definitely-not-an-oval. Exciting times. Ilott does have a little bit of work to do though, as he is 14 points behind Schumacher (205 points). Mazepin is in third place (162 points), but probably doesn’t care at this point given he has a confirmed F1 seat for 2021. Shwartzman is fourth (159 points), Tsunoda is fifth (157) and Lundgaard is sixth (149 points), with all of them desperately trying to hold onto whatever they need to get their super licenses.