Bad luck rains in the desert
The first race of the season was all about trying to explain the new format, which F2 CEO Bruno Michel promised us would make sense once we actually watched it, but really it was just a distraction from the fact that all the cars are now blue, so not only would we not understand why the drivers were in the grid in the order they were, but we also wouldn’t even know who they were. (I’m just joking guys, I really like the new format and a grid of 18 blue cars).
Practice: Bad luck tyres
Since everyone had been testing at Bahrain a few days earlier, practice was like an extended version of that and therefore sadly lacking in normal F2 levels of drama (i.e. people spinning). Instead it was just a series of lock ups and discussion of how bad the tyre degradation was going to be (at least in the comms box, who knows what the teams were talking about). At the end of the session, Felipe Drugovich was fastest, which is a surprise to no one anymore, followed by Williams driver Dan Ticktum and Red Bull junior Liam Lawson.
Qualifying: Bad luck Vips
Bent Viscaal made a great start to his 2021 season by stalling at the end of the pitlane, while Drugovich carried on his promising start by being very fast. After everyone had done their first set of runs, Alpine Academy driver Guanyu Zhou decided he was going to run in the gap, which totally paid off as he went fastest of them all. Meanwhile, fellow Alpine junior Christian Lundgaard pleaded with his team, “Please do not put me in traffic.”
As everyone headed out to do their final laps, Ferrari Academy Driver Robert Shwartzman lost power and was stopped in the middle of the road, the first of many depressing moments for him over the weekend, which resulted in a red flag and probably much annoyance all round. It wasn’t long before he was cleared away though and the pressure was on to get the last laps in, with only five minutes to go. It seemed ART managed to find Lundgaard a lack of traffic, as he instantly went half a second faster than Zhou, taking provisional pole, although that didn’t last long as Zhou was flying, beating Lundgaard by just three thousandths of a second. The session ended with Zhou on pole, Lundgaard second and Drugovich third.
Red Bull junior Jüri Vips qualified in fifth, but was then disqualified because the undertray fins on his car were too long, which is just such a basic error I won’t even bother to explain what it means. As a result, Vips was dropped to the back of the grid, but then Hitech appealed so Vips was reinstated to fifth while they looked into it, but presumably Hitech were worried that getting the penalty later would be even worse, so they withdrew their appeal again and Vips was again down to the back.
Sprint Race 1: Bad luck Pourchaire
The grid for Sprint Race 1 was made up by reversing the top 10 from qualifying, naturally, meaning David Beckmann should have been on pole, but thanks to Vips’s disqualification it was actually Sauber Academy driver (yes, that is a thing) Théo Pourchaire. Beckmann was in second and Red Bull junior Liam Lawson was third, making it an all-rookie top three. Lawson made a great start, taking the lead, while Pourchaire did not, dropping to third behind Beckmann, before eventually making the place back. Aside from teammates Robert Shwartzman and Oscar Piastri almost crashing into each other, and Lundgaard being lucky enough to avoid it by driving round them both, it was an uncharacteristically cautious start for F2. Apparently no one wanted to risk crashing and also ruining the next race later on in the day.
The first race casualties were on lap two, when Ticktum accidentally crashed into Richard Verschoor while trying to overtake Zhou. Verschoor was out and Ticktum got a five-second penalty, to which his response was simply “copy that,” which was a relief to everyone. Drugovich seemed to somehow also have been involved because he was in the pits getting a new front wing (he apparently ran into the back of teammate Zhou at some point). More drama unfolded as Ferrari junior Marcus Armstrong had a car issue, but got hit by ex-blogger Ralph Boschung as he slowed and tried to pull over to the side of the track. Boschung and Armstrong were both out, and the Virtual Safety Car was called, which was bad news for back marker Guilherme Samaia as he got a five-second penalty for a VSC infringement.
Back at the front, the all-rookie podium was looking good for some time until Jehan Daruvala eventually chased down Beckmann and, after quite some battle, managed to get past him to take third place behind Lawson and Pourchaire. Then bad luck struck Pourchaire, whose car gave up and he was suddenly out of the race. Daruvala obviously saw his chance for victory and went about using all his experience against rookie Lawson to put him under pressure. Lawson desperately told his team “I’m really trying”, which he clearly was because he managed to somehow fend off Daruvala, winning his debut F2 race in a vey impressive manner. Beckmann completed the podium in third.
Sprint Race 2: Bad luck Vips (again)
Vips was somehow on pole, having managed to make his way from last to tenth in the previous race. Conversely, fan-favourite Alessio Deledda, who really was last, was now starting even more last from the pitlane, for some unknown reason that no one probably cares about. Vips said he definitely thought this race would be easier than the last race, while Lirim Zendeli in second and Dan Ticktum in third were thinking about managing their tyres.
While Vips and Zendeli got away well, Ticktum was less lucky, as Shwartzman barrelled into the back of him. Lundgaard was once again lucky to avoid Shwartzman’s opening lap enthusiasm, while Ticktum was out of the race, which Ticktum said was “lovely”, but what was really lovely was seeing the new Aston Martin Safety Car.
After the restart, there was a lot of overtaking (classic F2), including Zhou overtaking Zendeli and Vips for the lead. Zendeli’s race didn’t get better, as just behind him, Lundgaard barged past Piastri before hitting the back of Zendeli, giving Zendeli a puncture and Lundgaard a ten-second penalty. Zendeli was not pleased, “ARE YOU SERIOUS!?” and I imagine Lundgaard wasn’t super happy about it either.
Up front Zhou had managed to pull out a small lead, while Vips was getting on with his own thing in second and Lawson had Drugovich and Lundgaard bearing down on him, all fighting for third. Drugovich then decided to go for the move, pushing his way past Lawson, who was having none of it and fought the place back. Lundgaard, lurking just behind them, took full advantage of the situation and overtook them both, which just seemed to annoy Drugovich more, and he dove up the inside of Lawson, making contact and spinning Lawson around. The Safety Car was back out and Drugovich was given a ten-second penalty.
Vips, Lundgaard and Piastri all pitted under the Safety Car, with Lundgaard taking his penalty, although apparently literally no one saw it. This left Zhou, Drugovich and Armstrong as the top three, but the restart was classic F2 overtaking chaos that could never be done justice in writing, and Vips had a car problem, which all left the Alpine Academy trio of Zhou, Piastri and Lundgaard fighting for victory. They drove around three-wide until the last lap when Lundgaard decided to go for the double overtake and lunge past both Piastri and Zhou. He failed. Piastri did pass Zhou though, and then Lundgaard managed it too, as Zhou was apparently still on a set of soft tyres that he had started the race on (wtf?). The race ended with Piastri first, Lundgaard second and Zhou in third. Piastri summarised the whole thing perfectly with the quote of the weekend, “OH MY GOD. If you don’t love F2, I think you do now… Holy ****”
The drama didn’t end there though, as FIA officials quietly swept in to remove Lundgaard from the podium, as apparently they seemed to think he still needed to take his penalty. Lundgaard could be seen looking confused as he was led away, to be replaced by fourth-placed Jehan Daruvala. Many hours later, this decision was reversed, in classic FIA style by quietly publishing a new results list.
Feature Race: Bad luck Petecof
Remembering back to Friday’s qualifying, Zhou was on pole for the Feature Race, Lundgaard was second, Drugovich third and Ticktum fourth, with a split in tyre strategies as Zhou and Ticktum were on the hard compound. Exciting business.
Lundgaard and Drugovich both made an excellent start, stealing the lead from Zhou who dropped to third, but then there was a Safety Car because Shwartzman crashed into Williams driver Roy Nissany, who then ran into Deledda. Nissany and Deledda were out, while Shwartzman was given a drive-though penalty.
Lundgaard must have been happy as the Safety Car came in, after he had been complaining that “it’s too ******* slow”, but then he would have been less happy as Drugovich overtook him on the restart. The pair battled for a few corners before Lundgaard retook the lead. Piastri and Zhou were close behind in third and fourth, before Piastri eventually managed to get past Drugovich. Armstrong, on the soft tyres behind, was also on a good run of overtaking and had soon managed to get by Zhou for fourth. By now the top three were closely battling it out, while Lundgaard complained about the balance of his car. Lundgaard soon found himself in yet another three-wide battle, which he lost out on to Piastri, before coming into the pits for his mandatory tyre change. Drugovich came in one lap later, exiting the pits just behind Lundgaard. Piastri’s strategy of waiting a few extra laps turned out to be fortuitous, as Gianluca Petecof’s fire extinguisher went off, causing a Virtual Safety Car just as Piastri was leaving the pits. This meant that Piastri came out just ahead of Lundgaard and Drugovich, who were unable to challenge him while travelling at the mandated VSC speeds.
Even luckier with the pitstop timings was Armstrong, who pitted just as a full Safety Car was called and as a result somehow ended up leading the race, with Piastri second and Verschoor in third. Lundgaard, Drugovich and Zhou were right behind. At the restart, everyone basically overtook everyone else, and just to add to the confusion, a whole load of time penalties were handed out for Safety Car infringements, as apparently even the drivers had been confused by everything that had just happened. However, Armstrong was overtaken by Piastri, Verschoor, Drugovich and Zhou, while Lundgaard was overtaken by everyone else. Then Verschoor overtook Piastri for the lead and Vips was given a five second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
Once all the post-Safety-Car chaos overtaking had shaken out, Verschoor, Piastri and Zhou were the top three, with Ticktum making a full charge from fourth place. It wasn’t long before Zhou was past Verschoor for the lead and Ticktum was battling hard with Piastri for third. Ticktum got past, but Piastri refused to give him any space. They ended up colliding, with Piastri being fully spun around, while Ticktum managed to carry on to keep the place. The VSC was called as Ticktum asked “what the **** is he doing man?”.
After the VSC, Ticktum went round the outside of Verschoor to take second place, while Lawson, who had benefitted from Piastri’s demise, also came at Verschoor, hoping to take the final podium spot. It was quite the battle, but Verschoor was obviously struggling and Lawson eventually got past on the last lap. Zhou won, which on paper looked like a pole to victory race, but was SO much more hard work than that.
Championship Standings: Bad luck Shwartzman
The Feature Race win points haul means Zhou is leading the championship with 41 points. Lawson’s impressive double podium on his debut weekend means he is second (30 points), while Daruvala’s consistency leaves him close behind in third (28 points).
Pre-season favourite Shwartzman is down in eighth place (16 points) because he spent the whole weekend crashing into people.
The next race isn’t for AGES and will be in Monaco, presumably some time near the end of May. It’s so far away I can’t be bothered to check.