French stuff, cheap champagne and anguish
The important news of the weekend was that Ralph Boschung’s MoonMobile would once more be driven by Roberto Merhi (while Ralph recovers from a neck injury). Questions were raised (by me, just now) whether Merhi could get another podium that he would lose due to a penalty but then get back again due to someone else’s penalty, or whether we could just have a race where the people who finish in the top three get to be on the podium. Also missing this week’s race was Jake Hughes, who tested positive for COVID and handed over his car to VAR reserve driver David Beckmann.
Practice: Vesti anguish
While localish guy, Théo Pourchaire was all smiles and excitement about the weekend, animatedly declaring “French, French, French” when interviewed beforehand, Frederik Vesti was probably not smiling as he drew on his bad luck from the previous round, his car seemingly broken just ten minutes into the practice session. He was stopped at the side of the track and a short Virtual Safety Car was called to get him out of the way.
Once they were allowed to go fast again, the times tumbled, as did Logan Sargeant (the car version of a tumble is a spin, ok), wrecking his lap and his tyres. Ayumu Iwasa had no such problems and half way through the session he was the fastest, with Jüri Vips second and Jack Doohan third. It wasn’t all going well for Doohan though, as he was soon oversteering into the pit lane, whether he meant to or not.
In an ominous sign, with shades of Austria, Richard Verschoor had a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits. Please don’t make me bring out the Wheel of F2 Misfortune again. Meanwhile it was also going wrong for Dennis Hauger, who was stopped at the side of the track, à la Vesti 30 minutes earlier, and Sargeant was off wide, à la Sargeant 27 minutes earlier.
As the chequered flag waved, it was Vips who was fastest, with Iwasa second and Pourchaire third. The drivers all went round to the grid to have a practice start, with Jehan Daruvala practicing a failed start by stalling (or some technical shit) and waving his hands about hoping no one behind crashed into him. Pourchaire, however, never made it round to the starting grid because he had spun and was just sitting in his car, stranded somewhere in the red and blue hypnosis abyss. Maybe he’ll be there forever.
After Practice, Roy Nissany was hauled to the stewards office (or probably just politely asked to go and see them) and handed a three-place grid penalty for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner and getting in the way of Enzo Fittipaldi, as well as another one-place grid penalty for impeding Olli Caldwell. Such quality driving meant that Nissany would have a four-place grid drop for the Sprint Race (spoiler alert: he didn’t even qualify high enough to drop four places).
Qualifying: Prema-man anguish
Qualifying was drama free in the beginning. Pourchaire had been recovered from Le Castellet’s No Man’s Land and was competing for fastest lap along with Sargeant, Doohan and Iwasa, until Doohan had his lap time deleted and dropped down to fifth behind Sargeant, Iwasa, Pourchaire and Verschoor. Olli Caldwell had also suffered a lap time deletion and was 21st, ahead of only Cem Bölükbasi, who didn’t even have a time on the board on account of both of his laps being deleted.
As most drivers started their last few laps, Fittipaldi was dejectedly walking away from his car, his qualifying session over. Hauger, meanwhile, was experiencing full déjà vu as his car was broken at the side of the track. It was hard to tell who was more upset about it, Hauger or the guy on the Prema pit wall with his head in his hands. The red flag was waved.
There were three minutes left once the session was underway again. Championship leader Felipe Drugovich was the first to do a flying lap, going fastest of all until Iwasa, Vesti, Doohan, Sargeant and Pourchaire went even faster. They all then had to hurry round to cross the finish line in time to do another lap. Drugovich, out front, did so comfortably, but provisional pole sitter Iwasa didn’t make it and had no choice but to just watch while everyone else went out on one last attempt to beat his time. Luckily for Iwasa though, it apparently wasn’t that easy to do an even faster time and only Sargeant could top him. Qualifying ended with Sargeant on pole, Iwasa second, Vesti third, Drugovich fourth and Doohan fifth, although Drugovich then had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits and he was dropped down to sixth place behind championship rival Pourchaire.
Sprint Race: Armstrong anguish
Daruvala was on pole for the Sprint Race, Liam Lawson was second and Marcus Armstrong was third. Daruvala managed a look of general disappointment while at the same time being grateful for the reverse grid format, meaning that despite his disappointing qualifying he at least got to be on pole for something. Lawson talked about the amount of glare from the setting sun, describing not being able to see while driving round at over 100km/h as “interesting”, and Armstrong said it was a game of survival. F2 drivers with a healthy dose of realism. Also getting a healthy dose of realism were Enzo Fittipaldi, Richard Verschoor and Clément Novalak, who all stalled on the Formation Lap before the race. They were off to the pit lane to try and start from there (albeit four laps later in Verschoor’s case), while the rest of the field lined up on the grid to start the race.
Daruvala got a good start, while Lawson got a terrible start, dropping behind Armstrong and feeling the pressure from Drugovich, but Lawson wasn’t prepared to lose any more places, squeezing Drugovich out, resulting in Drugovich going wide and getting overtaken by Pourchaire instead. Lawson then got to work getting his place back off Armstrong, with a congratulatory “Lovely work mate,” from his engineer as Lawson completed the move.
Further back, Fittipaldi was recovering from his disastrous non-start, having strapped on some soft tyres, and was flying through the field, until he got a little over zealous in an overtaking attempt, hitting the kerb and sliding into the side of Merhi. As Fittipaldi spun, Amaury Cordeel arrived on the scene and crashed into Fittipaldi. The Safety Car was deployed, Cordeel’s suspension was bent and Fittipaldi’s Sprint Race was not only over but his Feature Race was also ruined by a five-place grid-drop penalty.
As the Safety Car went back to the pits, Daruvala managed a faultless restart and tried his best to get away from Lawson, however Lawson was just too fast and a couple of laps later he powered by Daruvala, bashing his fellow Red Bull junior slightly on the way past. Shortly after, Armstrong also thought he might try barging past Daruvala, but he failed and instead Pourchaire got alongside Armstrong, drove him wide off the track and took third place for himself. Drugovich and Doohan also took the opportunity to get by as Armstrong tried to recover back to the track; Armstrong dropping from third to sixth in one Pourchaire-move. “This is unbelievable!” cried Armstrong. He couldn’t know what would take place next. On the last lap, Armstrong’s own teammate Vips also decided Armstrong looked like an easy target and pushed him off track. Vips went through with Vesti and Iwasa following. The F2 people didn’t broadcast what Armstrong had to say about that.
Lawson crossed the line to take the win, “Not going to lie, I nearly lost it on the last lap” he told his team before also declaring that he scared himself with his late braking move on Daruvala. Daruvala just said “fair play”, while Pourchaire spoke French, French, French. Then they all danced about spraying weirdly F2-labelled fizzy stuff because it’s illegal in France to have the Italian, non-champagne, sparkling wine that’s usually on the podium? Or Formula 2 is making it’s own budget-branded champagne now?
After the race, in another throwback to Austria, Pourchaire was given a five-second time penalty for forcing Armstrong off track, Vips was given a five-second penalty for forcing Armstrong off track and Armstrong was given a five-second time penalty for forcing himself off track barging Daruvala a bit. As a result, Pourchaire was demoted from third to seventh, promoting Drugovich up to the final podium spot.
Feature Race: Sato anguish and a nice hug
Like a train, the Feature Race was delayed for no apparent reason. However, on the plus side, the penalty Roulette wheel hadn’t yet been rolled out for Qualifying so, as expected, Sargeant was starting on pole, Iwasa second and Vesti third. Vesti was pretty happy to start third given his non-existent practice session, Iwasa was just waiting for a Safety Car and hoping to do his best, while Sargeant was confident, which, unusually, was a refreshing change. Sadly though for Sargeant, his confidence was misplaced, as he had a terrible start, dropping to third place behind Iwasa and lightening starter Doohan, who went from fourth to first in a matter of seconds. Then all the drama happened as Iwasa overtook Doohan for the lead of the race, Armstrong and Beckmann had some kind of incident, with Hauger as collateral damage, and Sato randomly spun. The Safety Car was called, Beckmann carried on, Armstrong was out, Hauger was off to the pits for a new front wing and Sato was looking distraught while also having a hug with one of his team.
As the Safety Car was put away, it was Iwasa in the lead, Doohan second, Sargeant third, Vesti fourth and Pourchaire fifth, which is how it stayed until the mandatory pit stops began. Some had started on the harder tyres and pitted for the softer tyres, while some had started on the softer tyres and pitted for the harder tyres, yet they all pitted at the same time, implying there was either some very clever tyre strategy happening or the whole thing was meaningless. Regardless, the pit-stop losers were Doohan, who got held by his team for ages in a conservative attempt to avoid an unsafe release, and Sargeant whose car broke, ending his race. The pit-stop winner was Pourchaire, who suddenly found himself in second place behind Iwasa and ahead of Doohan.
After complaining to his team about his terrible pit stop, Doohan set to work trying to overtake Pourchaire, except he was never going to make the move he attempted and spun instead, allowing Vesti past in the process. Doohan was down to fourth for a minute until Drugovich also overtook him and set off down the road to get Vesti too. By the last lap, Drugovich was so close to Vesti that he could almost touch the podium, but it wasn’t to be and Vesti kept his third place. It also wasn’t to be for Verschoor, who cried “something is on fire!” before pulling over to the side of the track.
After an impressive performance, Iwasa looked alive with joy, “Finally!” he proclaimed, while second-place Pourchaire commandeered Iwasa’s French team DAMS for an impromptu French national anthem singsong in the pit lane. Then they all sprayed the F2 own-brand bubbles and looked happy. A fitting end to the weekend at Paul Ricard.
Championship standings: Anguish-free Drugovich
Despite not featuring heavily this weekend, Drugovich kept up the points gathering and the championship lead (174 points), while Pourchaire regained his second place (134 points) from Sargeant (118 points). Daruvala is still fourth (94 points) and Lawson rounds out the top five (79 points) for now…
The next round is Hungary this weekend and then we get a lovely break (as opposed to the horrible breaks that we had thanks to the F2 calendar last year) until the end of August.