Drivers doing things that aren’t driving
F2 has arrived in Spa and it’s a bit wet, a bit cloudy and a bit sunny. All the Spa things. Perfect.
Practice: Bearman watching TV
The start of Practice was dry-ish. Not wet tyre weather, but perhaps not dry tyre weather either. Maybe that’s why nearly everyone stayed in the pits, leaving Dennis Hauger and a handful of others to dutifully drive around and suss out the track conditions.
Rafael Villagómez also dared to venture out, but perhaps he shouldn’t have, as he spun and smashed into the wall. The red flags waved and the drivers were all forced to continue sitting in their cars in the pit lane. Ollie Bearman took the time to watch F1TV on his phone, while poor ill Zak O’Sullivan was probably happy to have an excuse not to drive.
The session restarted with only around 15 minutes left to go, so everyone (apart from Villagómez, obvs) hurried out to actually do some proper laps. Bizarrely for the longest track of the season, everyone rushing out at the same time caused some traffic issues, with Kush Maini bearing the brunt, while Bearman managed to sabotage his lap all by himself by running wide through the gravel.
It all ended with Isack Hadjar the fastest, Victor Martins second and Kimi Antonelli third.
Qualifying: Hadjar shouting
No one wasted any time getting started with Qualifying, especially given the good five minutes needed to properly warm up and get ready for a super-fast quali lap. It was therefore particularly convenient that, just as they were all about to begin their super-fast quali laps, something happened to Martins’ electronics and he was all of a sudden grinding to a halt. Despite his best efforts to use the downward slope to get going again, he could not. His session was over and the red flags were flying.
Take two. With 20 minutes to go everyone was up to flying speed (except Martins, obvs), with Paul Aron going fastest, quickly followed by Hadjar going faster. After a flurry of activity, everyone went back to the pits to get new tyres. The whole in-lap, changing tyres, waiting a bit, out-lap, warm-up lap process took so long that there were only three minutes to go when they started their next set of super-fast quali laps. Hauger took provisional pole, then Jak Crawford, then Aron again. Hadjar could only make P2, crossing the line while SCREAMING, “Man! I had the safety mode!!” Gabriel Bortoleto then quickly claimed second place for himself, pushing Hadjar down to third. And that was that.
In the post-quali press conference it would have been hard to tell that these were the top-three drivers if it wasn’t for the fact that was literally the point of the press conference, with all three refusing to hype themselves up too much and Hadjar still visibly upset from his safety mode incident. “There are no celebrations on Friday,” Aron reminded us. Indeed.
Sprint Race: Maini snoozing
Forty minutes after the scheduled start for the Sprint Race and nothing was happening, except rain, lots of rain, and Maini having a little sleep in his car. Apparently that was adrenaline rush enough for the time being and the race was postponed.
Three and a half hours later and everyone was on the grid getting ready to race. Except that it was still raining. One minute Race Control were all “we’ll have another update ten minutes” and then the next minute they were like “fuck it, let’s just start this race now before it rains too much,” so everyone jumped in their cars and got going.
The reverse-grid meant that O’Sullivan was on pole, Hauger was starting second and Richard Verschoor third. In a rare show of F2 carefulness, they all made it round the first corner, albeit tentatively, with the top three holding their positions. We also got the answer as to why the Premas haven’t been as good as usual this year. It’s because they have boats instead of cars, evidenced by Bearman (who started 14th) suddenly being in eighth place by lap two and Antonelli overtaking Franco Colapinto through Eau Rouge in a moment that social media will forever use to prove that he is truly deserving of being the High King of Hypey Hypeness and will eventually take to the Throne of Racing Gods (or just get an F1 seat at Mercedes). Sadly for the Prema duo, however, their boating adventures were short-lived thanks to Pepe Martí randomly stopping in the middle of the track. A Virtual Safety Car became a full Safety Car became a red flag, as the rain fell harder.
Race Control determined that the race would not continue and allocated some random amount of points courtesy of F1’s “more than 25% of the race but less than 80% of the race blah blah blah” points rule that isn’t confusing at all. O’Sullivan, Hauger and Verschoor were ushered towards the podium, “Do we even get any points?” they asked each other. Silence. But it’s not confusing at all.
Feature Race: Antonelli distributing dry ice
The morning of the Feature Race was dry, which was likely a relief for the top three who just wanted to have a normal day and get lots of points. Pole-sitter Aron was wary from his experiences the previous weekend and said that, despite his good pace, he wasn’t celebrating yet. No celebrations EVER. We get it. Hopefully second-place Bortoleto and third-place Hadjar were feeling more upbeat. Unlikely to be feeling upbeat however were Antonelli and his team, as Antonelli was spewing dry ice pellets out of his car during the formation lap. According to the stewards this was bad, very bad, and also not the first time he had been guilty of such a terrible crime. After the race he was given a five-place grid drop for the next race, to be added to his other five-place grid drop penalty from the previous offence, which had been suspended, but was no longer suspended. Something for him to look forward to.
Anyway, back to the start of this race and the top three got away smoothly, keeping their positions. Further back wasn’t quite as civilised, with Bearman and Martí in a crash and Colapinto randomly driving about slowly. While we (me) were distracted with “what happened there!?”, Hadjar took the opportunity to sneak past Bortoleto for second place, just before the Safety Car was deployed to deal with the stricken cars of Martí, Bearman and Colapinto who were all out of the race. The incident left Martí in the mood for reflection, “Mate, my luck is insane! Best start of my life!” He wasn’t even being sarcastic, he did have a great start, but his great start launched him up to Bearman who then hit him off track; a move for which the stewards handed Bearman a five-place grid drop for the next race. Something for him to look forward to.
It was soon time for the race to resume. Aron managed the restart well, once more keeping the lead, with Hadjar and Bortoleto still second and third. Things went less well for Villagómez who went wide while trying to pass Taylor Barnard, causing Villagómez to spin, taking out unlucky Martins with him. Villagómez and Martins both ended up in the wall and the Safety Car was back out on track.
As the Safety Car period ended, the top three remained the same while everyone else got into overtaking. The mood was apparently catching and soon Hadjar was breathing down Aron’s neck before breezing past to take the lead of the race. Aron decided to do something about it in the form of taking his mandatory pit stop, with Hadjar opting to take his pit stop a lap later. Hadjar’s pit stop was a bit slow, or “shit” as he described it, however he still managed to come back out on track ahead of Aron. The race for the lead wasn’t over yet though, as Hadjar’s new tyres were cold, whereas Aron’s earlier pit stop meant his tyres were warmed up and he was faster, enabling him to soon fly by Hadjar to regain his position.
If Hadjar thought his pit stop was shit, I dread to think what Enzo Fittipaldi said during his, where the car stalled and refused to start again meaning his race was over. Having a different kind of struggle were Maini and Roman Staněk who were given five-second time penalties for exceeding track limits.
A few laps later and Hadjar’s tyres were sufficiently warm for him to once more breeze by Aron to retake the lead of the race. That wasn’t the end of Aron’s woes however, as soon Bortoleto came speeding past him too, relegating Aron to third. That also wasn’t the end of Aron’s woes as, on the last lap, his car broke. “I can’t believe it,” came Aron’s disappointed response. Definitely NO CELEBRATIONS for Aron. Hadjar celebrated his win predictably by shouting, but this time it was happy shouting. Bortoleto was second and Crawford was the benefactor of Aron’s bad luck, taking third place.
Championship standings: Hadjar counting his points and rubbing his hands with glee (may or may not actually have happened)
Hadjar’s successful weekend, combined with title rival Aron’s terrible weekend means that Hadjar is still in the lead of the championship (with 165 points). Aron has slipped down to third (124 points) behind Bortoleto (129 points). Zane Maloney is still fourth (111 points) while Crawford is newly up to fifth (100 points).