Gravelly

All the teams and drivers turned up to race in Imola as normal and everyone pretended that was indeed normal, despite it being widely reported that Hitech’s Team Director William Oakes had been charged with “transferring criminal property” after being caught hanging out with “a large amount of cash.” Just another day in the life of the F2 circus, I guess…?

Practice: Gravelly replays

Practice consisted primarily of replays of drivers going through various gravel traps until Oliver Goethe dramatically went very slightly too much over a kerb – DOUBLE REPLAY SLOW MO!

Return to replays of drivers going through gravel and then the end. Alex Dunne was fastest, Arvid Lindblad second and Kush Maini third.

Qualifying: Gravelly art

They all headed out at the start of Qualifying, trying to do a better job of staying out of the gravel than they had done in Practice, and they were mostly successful. Mostly. Cut to an onboard short from Richard Verschoor’s car and a trail of dust in the distance as Goethe artfully painted a plume of gravelly dust across the Imola skyline.

Anyway, everyone else actually managed to stay on track and, with ten minutes to go, Hitech’s Dino Beganovic did his very best job at showing just how fine everything was by going faster than all the others. It was also at this time that Kush Maini chose to crash himself into the gravel, bringing out the red flags. “Sorry mate, I just lost the car,” mournful Maini apologised to his team, but it wasn’t just them he needed to apologise to, it was everyone who wasn’t Beganovic, as there was no time left to finish the session and that was that. Maini had his fastest lap deleted as penalty for causing the red flag, while Beganovic secured pole position, with Sebastián Montoya second and Victor Martins third.

Sprint Race: Gravelly battles

Maini would have been on pole for the Sprint Race after having the tenth fastest lap during Qualifying, however his penalty meant that Ritomo Miyata got that honour and thus pole position for the Sprint Race. Miyata was just really happy about being there as he admitted it had been a while, in fact so many years he couldn’t exactly remember. Starting behind him was Jak Crawford and Goethe.

It was lucky that Miyata was just happy to be on pole, since he didn’t get to stay first for very long. In a classic moment for any F2 Imola pole sitter, second-place Crawford was soon past and leading the race. Although Miyata was probably grateful he only lost one position, considering Goethe was suddenly falling down the pack and getting shoved into the gravel. Also in the gravel was Gabriele Minì, having been pushed off track by Pepe Martí. As Martí complained, “What the fuck is Minì doing!?”, the stewards decided Minì was in fact just minding his own business and handed Martí a five-second time penalty for causing a collision. At the back, Sami Meguetounif avoided all the drama by never even getting started off the grid.

As everyone settled into the race, Miyata was managing to keep up with Crawford in the hope of regaining the lead, while Lindblad was third, Luke Browning fourth, Martins fifth and Dunne telling his team, “I’m going to play the long game,” in sixth. Playing the long game apparently wasn’t Lindblad’s plan as he set about putting Miyata under pressure for second, before finally managing to get past, followed a few laps later by Browning and then Martins. By this time, Crawford had managed to pull out a two-second lead, with Lindblad speeding along, trying to catch up, resulting in Browning’s team telling him he also needed to hurry up.

With a few laps left to go, Dunne decided it was time for him to join in and he also flew past Miyata for fifth place, before pushing to catch Martins ahead of him, who was close behind third-place Browning, who was chasing second-place Lindblad, who was hunting first-place Crawford. A short pause interrupted proceedings as Amaury Cordeel spun, but only a few yellow flags were needed before Cordeel got going again. By this time Lindblad was nearly half a second a lap faster than Crawford and only one and a half seconds behind, but alas (or luckily depending on who you are), Lindblad needed one more lap to be able to make a move and Crawford reached the chequered flag first, with the others also holding position despite the intense chase, leaving Lindblad in second and Browning third.

Probably feeling less fortunate than Crawford were Verschoor, who pulled into the pits to retire, and Cian Shields and John Bennett who had some sort of last-lap collision, before finishing in 18th and 19th respectively.

Feature Race: Gravelly grass

Beganovic was on pole and, like Miyata, he was just happy to be there after feeling like it was a long time coming. Montoya was supposed to be starting second although he stalled on the formation lap and Martins was supposed to be starting third although he stalled at the start. Their downfall made keeping the lead at the start a lot easier for Beganovic, although fourth-place Leonardo Fornaroli gave him a good run for his money. Lindblad once more found himself up into third having got past Dunne. Dunne wasn’t worried though, as he also once more told his team he wanted to play the long game. Did anyone tell the drivers that the Feature Race is supposed to be different to the Sprint Race?

By the third lap, Beganovic had caught and was ready to lap Martins (who had been dragged back to the pits and started the race from there) and was getting quite stressed about Martins being in the way, as Beganovic tried to escape the clutches of Fornaroli, Lindblad and Dunne. Cue plenty of shouty messages making it clear that Martins needed to “get out of the way!”

Luckily for Beganovic it was soon time for him to duck into the pits, avoiding any further Martins issues. Fornaroli, Lindblad and Dunne pitted at the same time, but Fornaroli suffered from a slightly longer pit stop meaning he lost two places, exiting the pits behind not only Beganovic but Dunne and Lindblad as well. Lindblad was also frustrated at having lost a place to Dunne, letting his team know “we should have stayed out another lap!” Staying out another lap certainly worked for Browning who had been in sixth place behind Dunne and Crawford before the pit stops but came out ahead of everyone and was suddenly in strong contention to win the race.

With Browning on cold tyres straight out of the pits, Beganovic and Dunne (still battling between each other) were soon right behind. Beganovic attempted a move around the outside of Browning but Browning wasn’t having any of it and Beganovic ended up on the grass leaving ample opportunity for Dunne to also barge past, before Dunne flew by Browning as well, with a little help from DRS.

Up front were those on the alternative tyre strategy who were still yet to take their pit stops, with Martí and Joshua Dürksen leading the way, trying to fight it out with each other while simultaneously pulling out a pit-stop sized gap to Dunne. The three-way fight between Dunne, Browning and Beganovic had really slowed the trio down and helped Martí and Dürksen to pull away, but now Dürksen had had enough of being stuck behind Martí and lunged past, just as Rafael Villagómez crashed his car straight into Meguetounif, while complaining “he just ran me off!”

The Safety Car was deployed, instantly eliminating the gap that Martí and Dürksen had worked so hard to achieve. With too many laps left to be able to take their pit stops during the Safety Car and survive to the end of the race on super soft tyres, Martí and Dürksen were left with no choice but to resign themselves to the fact that they weren’t going to win and Martí turned instead to complaining about how he didn’t think Dürksen had slowed down properly for the yellow flags. A default driver setting.

As the Safety Car ended, Dunne was desperate to get past Max Esterson (who was on the alternative strategy and still needed to take his pit stop) in order to use him as a buffer between himself and Browning. Dunne succeeded in the passt, but Browning could not. Dunne then set about passing as many of those who still needed to pit as possible, creating a three-car, three-second buffer between him and Browning.

In the closing laps, as Dürksen, Martí, Esterson and the others on the alternative strategy headed into the pits to take their mandatory stops, Dunne was left in the lead of the race, now five seconds ahead of the chasing pack. Despite their best efforts, no one could catch him and Dunne took the chequered flag to win, with Browning second and Beganovic third.

Championship Standings: Gravelly points

Unsurprisingly, those who scored best this weekend were those who also managed to mostly avoid the gravel and, with two Feature Race wins under his belt, Dunne is now leading the championship (64 points). Having been relatively consistent at scoring points, Browning is second (58 points) and having been very inconsistent at scoring points, Verschoor has now dropped to third (55 points). Fornaroli and Lindblad are close behind in fourth and fifth (52 and 45 points respectively). Luckily for all those that are unhappy with their points tally, they don’t have to wait long to try and get more, as Monaco is coming up this weekend and not a gravel trap in sight!