Classic F2 disaster fun

A new season has arrived! Full of new drivers, a new team and new hopes, as well as old drivers, old teams and old crushing disappointments. Yay!

Practice: The first of Caldwell’s disasters

The first session of 2022 should have been really exciting and action packed, except the drivers had all done testing around the same track just a few days earlier so knew exactly what they were doing. The only thing to give us a lick of excitement was the wind gusting at turn 13, causing dust clouds and a bit of off-track adventure.

Everyone was so unbothered about getting any practice in that after 15 minutes only six drivers had actually done a whole lap, and only half of those going at any speed. Although, maybe it was safer to be off track, as F2 veteran Marino Sato, apparently in his own little world, was weaving about trying to warm his tyres, while “little shark” Enzo Fittipaldi almost smashed into him.

As the end of the session drew closer, they did all have a go on track. A constant trading of lap times, with F2 old-timer Felipe Drugovich going fastest, Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa second fastest, and F2-sort-of-newbie Clément Novalak third fastest. Another sort-of-F2-newbie Olli Caldwell recorded a fastest time as well, but it was in the pit lane and his prize was a €200 fine.

Qualifying: Fifty-eighth second disaster

Tension was building at the start of qualifying, just because everything looks more dramatic at night. The clock struck whatever time it was supposed to strike for the start of the session, the green flags/lights were out/on, and the drivers filed onto track to see who would be the fastest and best. Cue dramatic music and tyre screeching. A suspenseful FIFTY-EIGHT SECONDS passed before Iwasa spun himself off the track, ending his session and bringing out the red flag. The clock was stopped. That’s one way to get people to notice you, I suppose.

After everyone had eventually been rounded up and put back in the pit lane, it was time for them to go out again, which they did, except for Drugovich who was just chilling in his car. On track, it wasn’t very chill, as F3 champion Dennis Hauger and everyone’s favourite unlucky Red Bull junior Jüri Vips were getting in each other’s way, with Hauger trying to go to the pits and Vips not wanting to go to the pits but nearly getting pushed in there anyway. Everyone else managed to get around the track without bothering anyone too much or looking particularly like they were definitely going to get pole, until F3 runner-up Jack Doohan decided to go in The Gap between when everyone does their first runs and when everyone does their last-minute panic runs. It was a good lap, landing him firmly on provisional pole, ahead of pensioner Jake Hughes and I-mentioned-him-earlier-so-please-don’t-make-me-think-of-something-new Felipe Drugovich.

As everyone came back out to have a final go, last season’s wunderkind (but French) Théo Pourchaire and last-chance saloon Jüri Vips were both looking fast. Pourchaire even managed two good lap times, after having one deleted because they don’t count if you don’t actually drive on the track. No one, however, could beat Doohan, and he became the year’s first pole-sitter, with Pourchaire second and Vips third. Much-hyped Hauger was only 15th. Perhaps it won’t be such a Piastri-esque championship walk in the park for him then.

No one looked very happy at the press conference, “Yeah, it was good,” enthused Doohan. On closer inspection, Pourchaire did look a bit happy, and confirmed this by saying that he was “really happy”, while Vips said he was “generally very happy” but also “quite annoyed,” although not about the Hauger thing because apparently you just have to forget about it and move on when stuff like that happens. Spoken like someone who has been worn down more than their age would suggest.

Finally, everyone agreed that the new F2 format is better than last year’s. Pourchaire felt that last year was too much in one weekend, while Vips didn’t like the long gaps between each round. Doohan summed it all up by just swearing. Never a truer word spoken, now let’s forget about it and move on.

Sprint Race: Crashing, spinning and oil leak disasters

The grid for the Sprint Race was a reverse of the top ten from qualifying, meaning that Drugovich was on pole, Richard “For Sure” Verschoor was second and Hughes was third. Hughes was hoping to keep his position, “anything else is a bonus,” Verschoor thought he could be competitive, and Drugovich was just planning on having a good start and looking after his tyres. The confidence was oozing out of them.

Also not looking the epitome of confidence was Red Bull junior Jehan Daruvala, who almost didn’t manage to get away from his fourth-place grid spot as everyone else set off for the formation lap. Luckily, however, he did get moving just about in time for no one to really notice (in fact it might not even have been Daruvala, but that’s what happens when you paint all the cars the same colour, thanks Red Bull).

It was mixed fortunes off the line, with Verschoor and my fav Ralph Boschung, having great starts, and Drugovich having an opposite start, to the point where I’m unsure how he even dropped so many (five) places. Verschoor saw his chance right from lights out and dived into the lead, with Daruvala and yet-another-Red-Bull-junior Liam Lawson fighting over second, until Boschung came and took it from them both. The squabbling left Verschoor looking quite comfortably in the lead, with Boschung in second, Daruvala third, Lawson fourth and Hughes was in fifth, until Drugovich barged past him to try and take back some of what he had lost. Pourchaire had other ideas though and overtook both Drugovich and Hughes, before everyone else also got past Hughes. Eventually Hughes had enough of that and crashed into bad-luck-magnet Marcus Armstrong, spinning Armstrong around until he was completely stopped and couldn’t go anywhere at all, giving the Safety Car it’s first outing of the season and Hughes a ten-second time penalty.

As the Safety Car came in, Drugovich complained that there was “oil or something” spilling out of the back of Pourchaire’s car, which apparently isn’t good, because he didn’t last too long before slowing and disappearing into the pits, never to be seen again (apart from when they cut to a shot of him leaning on a pile of tyres and looking very unhappy). Everything else was chaos, although not up front, because Verschoor managed his safety car restart very well.

With Pourchaire out of his way, Drugovich was now pressuring Lawson over fourth place, a scene that was repeated throughout the field, not least near the front, where Daruvala hounded Boschung before eventually finding a way through. Cut to Novalak crashing into Hughes, Hughes parking up at the side of the track and a Virtual Safety Car being called before Boschung could even consider getting his place back. Everyone paused their battles, while Novalak headed to the pits for a new nose cone and a ten-second penalty.

As soon as the VSC ended, Boschung and Daruvala resumed their intense battle, side-by-side for a series of terrifying corners until Boschung came out just ahead, Daruvala, fighting to try to keep the place, locked up, Boschung had the upper hand for a minute, until Daruvala regrouped and made a new lunge, finally securing second place for himself. Instead of being able to take a moment to breathe, Boschung suddenly had Lawson overtaking him. Where did he even come from? (Apparently, he explained his car was slow until suddenly it wasn’t slow any more, which is exactly the kind of insightful technical analysis I usually write). Angry Boschung was told to “focus” by his racing driver handler/engineer.

Up front, Daruvala was flying, much faster than Verschoor, however all the battling with Boschung had given Verschoor time to pull out a lead and he was far ahead of Daruvala. Victory was Verschoor’s and he was happy, with an Oscar speech thanking his team and sponsors. Daruvala was second and Lawson third, with Boschung holding onto fourth place. Further back, Caldwell stopped at the side of the track, presumably with an issue and not just because he couldn’t be bothered to finish the race, while Sato got a five-second penalty for not respecting the track limits and Iwasa finished eighth after starting dead last, courtesy of his disaster qualifying.

F1TV didn’t bother to upload the press conference and obviously I’m not going to actually read it, so let’s just pretend Verschoor said he was very happy, Daruvala felt he had the pace to win and Lawson thought the whole things was fine.

Feature Race: Pit stop disasters

There was no improvement in Hauger’s fortunes at the start of the Feature Race, which involved him getting stuck on the formation lap and being wheeled back to start from the pits. Luckily for the top three, Doohan, Pourchaire and Vips, they had no such problems. Vips in particular was looking good, as he jumped into the lead, while lightening-start-expert Boschung launched himself from fifth to second. Doohan had to make do with third and Pourchaire fourth.

Behind them were equal levels of people switching places, with Sato nearly getting pushed into the pit lane by Fittipaldi, and Mercedes junior Frederik Vesti getting involved in some incident that ended with him spinning and being stuck in the middle of the track. His race was over and the Safety Car was out.

As the racing resumed, Vips made an excellent start, comfortably keeping ahead of the chaos that unfolded behind him. Doohan overtook Boschung for second place, then Pourchaire also overtook Boschung and everyone else overtook each other, while tenth-placed Caldwell got a stop/go penalty for messing up some procedure.

The overtaking didn’t stop over the next few laps, with Lawson, Armstrong and fellow Antipodean Calan Williams also passing Boschung, while Iwasa (who had started last) repeated his impressive Sprint Race form by making it well into the points after only a few laps. By now, those on the harder tyres (basically everyone) seemed to be really struggling, something which soft-tyre-runner Armstrong took full advantage of, overtaking Lawson and Pourchaire to get himself into third position behind Vips and Doohan.

It was soon time for pit stops, with Vips, Pourchaire and Lawson all pitting together and only Doohan staying out for another lap. Race leader Vips’s stop was terrible, TERRIBLE. It was so terrible that everyone was in too much shock to even notice that Novalak retired from the race.

Doohan was now looking like a shoo-in to win, as he came in for his pit stop one lap later. He exited the pit lane just as Pourchaire was coming by. A small battle ensued, with Doohan, on cold tyres, attempting an ambitious/desperate move and breaking his own front wing. Pourchaire continued down the road, while Doohan complained all the way back to the pits.

With all this drama befalling the leaders, Drugovich, who had pitted very early, found himself in second place behind Iwasa, who was apparently determined to hold every position in the race and was yet to pit. Pourchaire, on his new tyres, soon came speeding up behind Drugovich, passing him for what became the race lead as Iwasa went to take his pit stop. Further back, Doohan was having another pitstop just for fun and Daruvala was driving about with a wonky front wing like it didn’t matter, battling with F2-lifer Roy Nissany. After nearly hitting Nissany and running off wide, Race Control told Daruvala he needed to stop to get his car fixed. That didn’t mean that Nissany had no one left to battle though, as Hauger barged past him to take eighth place. Behind them, Iwasa was out of the pits and didn’t want to miss another overtaking opportunity, so quickly followed Hauger through, Nissany dropping from eighth to tenth in an instant.

Up front, Vips was rage driving one second a lap faster than anyone else and flew past Boschung for fourth place, while Lawson passed Drugovich to take second, making the top four Pourchaire, Lawson, Drugovich and angry, charging Vips. Drugovich had no chance of holding onto third though, as Vips soon caught him and flew by. Lawson next in his sights.

Things were going more slowly for Caldwell who, after pitting and taking a ten-second penalty for ignoring track limits, drove away from the pitstop with a mechanic still attached (luckily it seems no one was hurt), before swiftly getting a drive-through penalty for still not being able to drive within the limits of the track. He really learnt all the different types of penalties this weekend.

It was also going badly for Nissany, who was still being overtaken by everyone. After some aggressive defence against Verschoor, Sato had now caught up and they were driving around three-wide for so long that Fittipaldi came to join in too. It turns out four-wide is simply too many and Verschoor ended up being nudged by Fittipaldi and spun around. If his radio and Twitter raging is anything to go by, he wasn’t happy. The Safety Car was deployed.

As everyone hated their tyres, some drivers decided to use the Safety Car period as an excuse to get nice new ones, with Hauger being the first. Unfortunately for Hauger, his team seemed in a bit of a rush with his pit stop, as his teammate Daruvala was also coming in. The result was Hauger only really getting three nice new tyres, as one of them wasn’t attached properly and rolled off his car to the other side of the pit lane. Hauger’s race was over. A freak event? Apparently not, because Williams suffered the same fate; pulling halfway across the pit lane, nearly hitting someone and leaving him stranded with three wheels. Daruvala was the only one who managed a relatively drama-free stop, dodging tyres and stranded cars in the pit lane to make his way out again, before the pit entrance was closed while everyone sorted themselves out. Pit stop practices needed all round quite frankly.

The Safety Car came in with what was assumed were two laps left, when all of a sudden it was actually only one lap and everyone was overtaking everyone and Pourchaire had won. Lawson kept second and Vips third. Iwasa, who had fought his way up to seventh, lost it all on the last lap and ended 16th. Consistency really isn’t a thing for him is it?

At the press conference, Pourchaire confirmed what we were all thinking: the end was stressful. Lawson talked like a proper racing driver about prime and option tyres and brake temperatures, while Vips was too disappointed to even fein happiness at his recovery drive. They all agreed the Safety Car had been driving too slowly, officially verifying that they are ready for F1.

Championship disaster

After the first round, Pourchaire is leading the championship with 25 points, Lawson is one point behind in second, and Vips is third with 18 points. Hauger, Fittipaldi, Sato, Cordeel, Vesti, Bölükbasi, Williams, Caldwell and Novalak had disaster first rounds, scoring no points.