Psychological rain and relief
Some driver biz to sort out before we get to what actually happened at Silverstone:
Boccolacci was back (after his contract expired at Campos), now racing for Trident, replacing Tveter, who was replacing Boschung.
Raghunathan was also back following his weekend-long suspension.
Also vital to note this weekend, was the ongoing saga of the Silverstone resurfacing. Important questions were asked, such as, just how will it rubber in, how slippery is it really offline, and will anyone ever be happy with it?
Practice: The Delétraz magnet
This week it was Gelael’s turn to run into Delétraz, but luckily Delétraz came away better than he did with the Alesi incident. Gelael was less fortunate.
The session ended with Ghiotto top of the time sheet, with Latifi and Zhou second and third. De Vries was only sixth.
Qualifying: It’s close at the top
The first bit of qualifying saw a rotating pole position, with just 0.008s between the top two, Sette Câmara and Latifi. That was until Ghiotto went even faster by a massive 0.001s. Zhou was complaining about the resurfacing, but still managed to go even faster than anyone else.
During this time, De Vries was only in sixth place, making his qualifying effort as lacklustre as his track guide. He’s no Jack Aitken in the TV skills department.
While everyone else was going really fast, Alesi spun off the track. Damn that resurfacing and its slipperiness.
Schumacher went a bit maverick and decided to attempt his qualifying lap in “The Gap”, between all the others’ first and second attempts. Would the gamble pay off for him? No. He got stuck behind everyone else as they came out to do their final out laps.
However, ultimately, no one could improve their times, except Zhou who managed to make his pole lap time even faster, taking his first pole position. It was Zhou, followed by Ghiotto and Sette Câmara. Latifi was fourth and De Vries down in seventh.
Gelael has a tantrum
For the Gel-Del incident in free practice, Gelael was given a reprimand. However, just before the race, the stewards changed their minds and gave him a three-place grid penalty instead. This last-minute annoyance was apparently just too much for Gelael who proceeded to withdraw from the whole weekend citing “personal reasons”. Wtf. I might try that at work next time someone irritates me. Oh wait, I don’t have the luxury of all that KFC sponsorship money to keep me in a job. What if I started wearing a bargain bucket on my head though…?
Feature Race: Team mate squabbles
As ever at Silverstone, there was a threat of rain, at least somewhere on the track, and the news was that there had been a sprinkling of rain earlier in the day… who doesn’t love that peril hanging over a race?
Ghiotto decided to buck his trend of losing several places at the start and instead took the lead from Zhou. Aitken made a great start from eighth place, but then had nowhere to go and lost it all again. Matsushita and Schumacher were off the road, and Hubert was left stalled on the gird, his brakes catching fire for luck.
Up front it was team-mate squabbles all round, as Zhou went for Ghiotto and Latifi went for the overtake on third-placed Sette Câmara. It was all very tense, probably even more so if watching from the pitwall.
Next it was Boccolacci off the road and out of the race, while Hubert was suddenly back in.
Things stayed as they were with Ghiotto leading from Zhou, Latifi and Sette Câmara until the first round of pit stops. Zhou and Latifi were the first to pit, while their team mates had to do another lap because F2 pit stops just aren’t that fast. However, Dams’s pit stop was fast enough and Latifi got out ahead of Zhou.
Alesi’s pit stop meanwhile was so terrible that he set off without a wheel attached properly. Luckily he noticed while he was still in the pitlane and stopped to be wheeled back for a retry, which was all kinds of confusion in the crowded pitlane.
Following Ghiotto’s and Sette Câmara’s pit stops, Ghiotto managed to come out still ahead of Latifi, but it was close and Latifi attacked, definitely ramming Ghiotto a bit. He couldn’t pull it off though, that was until Ghiotto locked up and gave Latifi the opportunity to pass. Ghiotto was having none of that and re-passed Latifi with DRS. It was legit thrilling I have to say, and there were still so many more prospects for excitement, such as, were they ruining their tyres with this intense battle? Would Zhou come back at them having saved his tyres? Was it going to rain? Would the resurfacing take another victim? I mean, it definitely looked like it was raining on the onboard cameras, but luckily Alex Brundle was co-commentating and was able to insightfully explain that it was just “psychological rain” that the drivers wouldn’t even notice.
Ghiotto soon managed to pull a bit of a gap to Latifi and his engineer suggested that he go for the fastest lap. So opposite to F1 engineers. He then proceeded to lock up all over the place in pursuit of said hot lap. I’m not sure that’s the best way of doing it. Ghiotto couldn’t pull off the fastest lap but he did win the race, and it was a fantastic drive. His frustration at always coming second was finally put behind him and a slight smile could be seen developing. Latifi came home in second, with Zhou in third.
Mazepin ended the race parked at the side of the track after Maini, who was going much faster than Mazepin for some reason, just barrelled into him.
Penalties
Alesi got done for speeding in the pitlane (a five-second penalty) and for an unsafe release (a 10-second stop and go penalty). Both team and driver failing hard on that pit stop.
Maini got a five-second penalty for hitting Mazepin, while Mazepin also got a five-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane. So little respect for pitlane speed limits this weekend.
Sprint Race: Lunge for the win
Ilott was on pole position for his home race, with Delétraz in second and De Vries in third.
Delétraz had a great start overtaking Ilott for the lead, as did Jack Aitken who went from fourth to second. This was basically already my dream result and the race should have ended there. However, it did not, and Ilott somehow managed to drop all the way back to fourth, while De Vries held onto third, until he jumped Aitken for second. So much excitement.
While Aitken and De Vries continued to battle it out, Delétraz began pulling out a lead. And somewhere near the back Alesi, who was going slowly, got rammed off track by Maini. Déjà vu from yesterday, don’t get caught out going a bit slowly when Maini is around. Maini got a drive-through penalty and the safety car was deployed. Poor Delétraz’s hard work was all lost.
The restart was drama free and Delétraz got back to work on pulling out the gap to De Vries and Aitken who continued their battle for second. They went side by side, De Vries tried to squeeze Aitken out, but Aitken went around the outside to take the position. At this point, it’s super important to note that such off line moves were incredibly difficult given the track was SO slippery from the resurfacing and then it also began to rain on some bits of the track and not others. So classic Silverstone.
Suddenly Ghiotto, who had been hunting down everyone and was in fifth place, was in the pits. WTF. It was exciting because we thought it could have been due to the rain, but it turned out to just be a boring puncture and he went back out on regular slicks. So anticlimactic.
Then, even more suddenly, Aitken made a lunge on Delétraz and overtook for the lead of the race. He just went for it. No one expected that. Less unexpected, however, was Sette Câmara bashing into Correa, as the two had been having an aggressive battle for 11th-ish for the whole race. Sette Câmara headed to the pits for a new front wing.
Delétraz did manage to keep Aitken honest for the rest of the race, but it was not meant to be for him, although he was obvs very nice about it. Aitken won, with Delétraz in second and De Vries in third, although Ilott had made him work for it.
Jack was too busy hugging everyone and being emotional about a home win to remember to do his interview. He also definitely looked like he might cry on the podium. It was all very touching.
The standings
De Vries is still in the lead with 170 points, but Latifi has managed to close the gap a bit on 139. Ghiotto is in third with 122 and Sette Câmara right behind with 121, while Aitken in fifth has 113 points and Zhou, the top rookie, has 105.