The championship ramps up

Following Monaco, Nicholas Latifi headed off to carry out his Williams F1 test driver duties at the Canadian Grand Prix. In front of what I’m sure was a proud home crowd, he took part in Free Practice 1, where he successfully managed to avoid running over a groundhog.

Meanwhile, Jordan King did a little thing called Le Mans, where his team ran for 14 hours before retiring with gear box issues. Louis Delétraz did some rallycross just for fun, and Ralph Boschung succeeded in a last minute bid to save his race seat for another round, having almost run out of money. 

Practice: Run-off area or hypnosis paint?

Practice kicked off with Calderón trashing the pits as she drove out and Hubert spinning, not that it matters with all those miles of run-off area. 

With De Vries really in the title hunt now, he and Latifi were trading fastest times, while everyone else had off-track adventures all over the place, until Sette Câmara came along at the end with a new fastest lap. 

The top three at the end of practice were Sette Câmara, De Vries and Ghiotto. Mazepin ended the session parked on track and facing the wrong way, but the marshals wouldn’t come to rescue him until all the other cars had gone back to the F2 paddock, so he sat there patiently while they all drove around him. Not embarrassing at all. 

Qualifying: Angriest reaction to pole position. Ever. 

Only a few minutes of qualifying had passed before Alesi rammed into the back of Delétraz. Alesi accused Delétraz of brake testing him, but Delétraz was having none of that and team owner Trevor Carlin was furious. The camera footage doesn’t lie Giuliano. 

Meanwhile Mazepin had smoke coming out the back of the car and was heading back to the pits. His session was over.  

Red flag. 

By the time the session restarted, Carlin had fixed Delétraz’s rear wing, taped up the floor with duct tape and he was back on his way. The same can’t be said for Alesi who was forced to sit the rest of the session out. 

There was a bit of a battle between Ilott, Aitken and Sette Câmara for pole position, with De Vries and Latifi obviously also in the mix, but Sette Câmara was fastest of all. Then, with three minutes to go, Boschung’s engine blew, bringing out another red flag. Boschung was clearly well angry, with glove throwing and everything. 

They all needed to get a move on when the session restarted as there wasn’t much time, everyone was pushing to the limit, including Sette Câmara who spun right at the end. He was even more angry than Boschung, banging about in the cockpit and waving his arms. He didn’t even realise that he was still the fastest. No one had been able to beat his previous time. Angriest pole sitter ever. 

The final results were an angry Sette Câmara in first, Zhou in second with a surprising lap that no one had seen coming and, in third place, Aitken, who had been threatening the top spots for the whole session. 

De Vries could only manage fourth, but was ahead of championship rival Latifi who was sixth. 

Ghiotto qualified 10th, but as he got a three-place grid drop from Monaco, he started in 13th. 

Penalties….

Starting from the back wasn’t considered punishment enough for Alesi, who had missed qualifying after ramming into the back of Delétraz. Instead, he was told to start from the pitlane. 

Feature Race: Remember the golden rule, never hit your team mate

Despite an excellent qualifying, Sette Câmara made an awful start and De Vries jumped them all, from fourth to first. He must have been cheering inside his helmet, although that probably isn’t his style. Aitken was second and Sette Câmara third. Raghunathan stalled. The worst start award, however, probably goes to Gelael, who managed to crash into his team mate Schumacher, sending Schumacher into the air before crashing back down to earth with a puncture. Schumacher trundled back to the pits to retire, while Gelael walked back to the pits to have a good hard think about what he did, although he didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Boschung and Mazepin also managed to crash into each other, ending their races. VSC deployed.

Having survived all that, Boccolacci was suddenly stopped in what looked like a really random place. “What’s happening Dorian?” his team enquired. Who knows, but there was a red flag. 

During the red flag we were treated to the news that the safety car has a TV inside and that Correa wanted to go to the toilet “so badly”. His team sympathetically told him “there’s only 27 laps to go.” The life of a racing driver. 

The race restarted under the safety car, during which De Vries complained “the safety car is going too slow.” Classic F1 driver complaint. The restart itself was also F1 levels of boring, with no one doing anything. 

Half a lap later and De Vries was already pulling a gap, although Sette Câmara was hanging onto Aitken in second. At the first opportunity, Aitken and Sette Câmara were in the pits, while De Vries stayed out. Sette Câmara had bit of a bad stop, allowing Aitken some breathing space. A lap later, De Vries pitted, and although he just made it out ahead, Aitken powered past him. They battled for bit until De Vries caught Aitken with the DRS shortly after. 

Further down the field there was much excitement going on, with everyone battling Matsushita for his 11th place. Prestigious. First Latifi gave it a go with DRS, but they touched slightly and Latifi went off wide. He was lucky not to get a puncture. Having recovered, Latifi was then overtaken by Ilott, who went on to have a very exciting battle with Matsushita before he attempted the overtake, lost control and hit Matsushita. They both spun. Matsushita recovered, but Ilott was out. We just heard the sad voice of Ilott, “I’m sorry.” VSC deployed. 

The next retiree was Delétraz, who suddenly lost power and dropped to the back of the field, “We can’t fix it” his team told him and he headed to the pits to retire. Poor Louis. 

Ghiotto, who had been in the lead, finally pitted. It was a bit slow, and he came out just ahead of team mate Zhou, who swiftly overtook him in a great move around the outside. Latifi was next up to have a go at Ghiotto and his cold tyres. Ghiotto defended aggressively and they were both lucky to come out of it intact. “I cannot turn the steering wheel, it’s so heavy” Ghiotto complained as his arms gave up and Latifi passed him. 

After everyone had done their pitstops, normality was restored with De Vries in the lead, Aitken second and Sette Câmara third, although Sette Câmara DRS’d Aitken with just a few laps to go.

With Ghiotto not seemingly in full control of his car, he and Correa had contact, leaving Ghiotto out of the race and probably glad it was over. VSC deployed.

Back racing and in the closing laps, Hubert passed Matsushita for eighth-place (reverse grid pole) in a very dramatic fashion, bursting through the polystyrene signage and somehow managing to keep it all together (turns out Matsushita’s place was worth fighting over after all). Sette Câmara ended his race in a similar way to his qualifying, by angrily waving his arms about at Raghunathan who was in his way, while also waving his arms about at his team on the pitwall, having lost radio contact. 

In addition to winning, De Vries managed to get the fastest lap, meaning he was now ahead of Latifi in the championship. He won, got his own overalls back and took the championship lead, what more could he ask for? Sette Câmara and Aitken were second and third. 

Don’t forget the penalties…

It was found after the race that Raghunathan managed to break the rules on all three VSC procedures and as a result he was given a 15-second time penalty and three penalty points on his license for EACH infringement. Even I think this is massively harsh. This means he now has 12 penalty points and has to miss the next event, not simply the next race. As a result he will complete the Sprint Race but miss the entire Austrian weekend.

Calderón was also found guilty of a VSC infringement, but got off lightly with a ten-second penalty. 

Gelael was told to start the next race from the pitlane following his team mate clobbering antics. 

Sprint Race: La Marseillaise rings out

Hubert was on pole. A Frenchman, with a special French-driver themed helmet, on pole in France. Could it be more French?

Luckily for him and the crowds he got away well, keeping his lead. King lost out after going off track and there was a whole load of F2 chaos, which started at turn one and didn’t stop being chaotic until after turn three. By then it seemed that Hubert was in the lead, with Aitken second and Correa third. Latifi and Zhou were in fourth and fifth, before Zhou overtook Latifi. 

As Hubert was told to push, Correa barged past Aitken to take second place. Then Zhou did the same and Latifi was coming down the road. “Can we pick up the pace again?” the team asked Jack.

Meanwhile, there was much midfield battling for the championship contenders. Latifi lost out to his team mate Sette Câmara, after several corners of side-by-side action. While De Vries was being kept honest by Delétraz. De Vries put up a strong fight, but Delétraz did eventually pass for good.

All this action left Latifi in sixth and De Vries in eighth (with Delétraz in between them). But De Vries’s day was about to get worse, as Ilott overtook him, pushing De Vries out of the points, and just to add insult to injury, Matsushita also passed De Vries in the closing laps.

French flags were waving as Hubert did his final lap. Apparently it could get even more French, who knew? There was, in fact, an abundance of French flag celebrations for Hubert. Lovely. 

Correa and Zhou completed the all-rookie podium, but then isn’t that what sprint races are for?

Championship standings

With De Vries’ Feature Race win and Latifi’s lack of anything spectacular, De Vries is now 12 points ahead in the championship, with Latifi in second, Aitken in third, Sette Câmara in fourth and Zhou in fifth. Following an anonymous and pointless four-race streak for Ghiotto, he is way down in sixth place.