Two new ways to lose victory in Monaco

Before Monaco happened there was lots of other F2 driver action that just can’t be ignored.

F1 excitement 

As if the F2 racing in Spain wasn’t gripping enough, the weekend was followed by F1 testing, featuring five of the F2 field. F1 testing veterans Jack Aitken and Nicholas Latifi were driving for Renault and Williams respectively, with Latifi doing both days of testing, probably because Kubica and Russell couldn’t face even one more day of lugging that car around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya after the Spanish Grand Prix.

F1 newbies, Nikita Mazepin (Mercedes), Callum Ilott (Alfa Romeo) and Sérgio Sette Câmara (McLaren) were also along for the ride and out to impress on their first outings in F1 cars.

So how did they do?

Aitken dutifully did his testing business. 

Latifi helped Williams make up for all that lost testing time at the start of the season by doing more laps than anyone else. 

Mazepin also did lots of laps and was also very fast (he was in a Mercedes though). 

Sette Câmara broke down. 

Ilott crashed after 41 laps. 

Indycar excitement 

When the whole F2 circus finally headed over to Monaco, it was without Jordan King who missed the glitz and glamour of Monte Carlo as he had the glitz and glamour of the Indy 500 to contend with (he finished 24th). King was replaced for the weekend by F2 2017 runner-up Artem Markelov. Clearly that season’s success was a real launch pad for his racing career. 

Practice: Watch for that red light

Schumacher was, predictably, first out for the weekend’s practice session, although he had to shove his way through a bit as the track got busier. Just like his dad. Equally predictably, Matsushita broke down. 

The highlight of the session (for me) was some lovely slow-mo shots of Delétraz.

The top three were, shock horror, Latifi, De Vries and Ghiotto, but actually shocking was Latifi getting a three-place grid penalty for going through the red light at the end of the pitlane. With track position being EVERYTHING at Monaco, that was basically his entire weekend over.

Qualifying: Odds versus evens 

Monaco F2 qualifying is all kinds of crazy and for that reason they don’t let all the cars go out on track at once. So, qualifying was split into two sessions, each lasting 16 minutes. The drivers were divided into groups (odd car numbers versus evens) and there was a ballot to decide which group went first. Pole position would go to the fastest driver, while second place would go to the fastest driver from the other group, and so the grid would be formed by alternating positions between the two groups.

Group A: The losers

It was the odd numbered cars that were unfortunate enough to go first, already sealing their fate of not being on pole, as the track is usually much slower at the beginning of the session. For those few who have not memorised all the F2 drivers’ car numbers, group A was: Delétraz, Mazepin, Sette Câmara, Zhou, Schumacher, Ilott, Aitken, Raghunathan, Hubert and Boschung. 

Apparently, it was decided that the best approach to qualifying at Monaco was to never actually set a full lap until about four minutes before the end, and then for everyone to go out at once and just hope that they would be lucky and not get held up by any of the other drivers. Delétraz did just that, going fastest of all, but alas it wasn’t meant to be as he couldn’t go any faster and everyone else could, which left him fifth in the group.

Then Ilott came from nowhere with a super fast “pole” position lap despite never having raced at Monaco or having had a front-row F2 qualifying position before.

Schumacher also did a storming lap, making it up to second, just 0.007 seconds behind Ilott, and Aitken was on a storming lap until he got stuck behind Raghunathan, ultimately also ruining his weekend. He and Latifi should have just gone to a bar somewhere and relaxed for the next few days.

Ilott’s time of 1 min 21.5 was the one to beat if group B wanted to take pole.

Group B: The winners

Group B consisted of Matsushita, De Vries, Latifi, Ghiotto, Gelael, Correa, Boccolacci, Calderón and Alesi.

De Vries pretty much went faster than Ilott on his first lap, meaning Ilott would only be in second place on the grid, but then, as per group A, all the action didn’t happen until the final few minutes of the session. 

The usual suspects were up front, De Vries, Ghiotto and Latifi, all battling it out for the top spot, while Boccolacci gave us the first Monaco barrier clobbering of the F2 weekend before limping back to the pits.

The top three of group B were De Vries, Ghiotto and Latifi, although Latifi’s grid penalty meant he would be waaaaaaay down once the race began.

After the merging of the groups, the top three were De Vries, Ilott and Ghiotto.

Ghiotto blamed his lack of pace on his survival instinct. He didn’t want to die crashing into the barriers, which seems fair enough. His game plan for the race was to jump Ilott at the start and then settle for second place. A solid strategy.

Feature Race: A surprisingly smooth start

Ghiotto didn’t have to worry about executing the first part of his plan, as Ilott’s car “just turned off by itself” on the grid. He was sadly wheeled away while all the other cars went for a second formation lap. Aside from Ghiotto, Ilott’s demise should have been helpful for Schumacher, who now had an empty track ahead of him, leaving him free to launch himself into the lead. But Schumacher’s start was slow, and he lost places to Sette Câmara and Hubert (although he later claimed back his place from Hubert in an impressive overtake). De Vries and Ghiotto meanwhile got away well, which was surprising given Ghiotto’s previous form with starts. Also surprisingly, everyone made it safely round the first lap, apart from Aitken, who radio’d in to say he’d had contact, and Markelov, Boschung and Calderón who got ten-second penalties for cutting the first corner. 

De Vries, meanwhile, was putting in fastest lap after fastest lap out front, while his championship rival Latifi languished in eighth place, which was rubbish because he started in eighth and, thanks to Ilott’s retirement, should have been able to manage seventh by doing absolutely nothing (because driving round Monaco is easy, yeah?), but instead he lost a place to Matsushita.

Lap six saw the first cars starting to pit, in the form of Aitken, Hubert, Boschung and Gelael. Hubert’s pit stop was so slow that Gelael managed to get out ahead of him. Latifi, Delétraz and Schumacher were next to pit. 

Up front, with De Vries having pulled out a three-second lead, Ghiotto was now really trying hard to catch up, putting in the fastest lap of the race. Sette Câmara remained in third. At the opposite end of the field, Aitken was frantically trying to pass Raghunathan (déjà vu anyone?). In desperation to stay ahead, Raghunathan cut across the nouvelle chicane, earning himself a five-second time penalty.

Traffic jam

Latifi, having not done much for the whole race, managed to damage his front wing in an attempt at overtaking Schumacher. Seeing how it’s done by the more experienced drivers, Schumacher then rammed Calderón at the last corner, just like his dad. They stopped. Everyone stopped. The whole track was blocked. Red flag. 

The marshals descended onto the track, trollies at the ready, and proceeded to push ALL of the cars back to the pitlane, which understandably took an age, leaving me wondering how embarrassing that must be for Schumacher, helplessly sitting there and knowing that this was all his fault. He probably just blamed Calderón. That’s the racing driver way.

Now, with all the front runners not having yet completed their mandatory pitstops, this was a nerve wracking situation for them. Once back on track, all the cars would be bunched up, and carrying out their pitstops would drop them back far behind those who had already done their stops. Meaning that basically all those who hadn’t stopped were screwed. That’s racing.

Sitting pretty at the top of the list of cars who had completed their pitstops was Mick Schumacher. Oh the irony. Cause a massive pile up, use it to your advantage and win the race. So Schumacher*. However, the stewards saw right through that game plan and handed him a drive-through penalty, meaning the actual potential net leader of the race was LOUIS DELÉTRAZ. Happy times. 

In panic at this unforeseen situation, all the have-not-stopped-yet-ers decided to switch to new tyres that were supposed to be for tomorrow’s race (which did not count as the mandatory pitstop), hoping that they could go fast enough on the fresh rubber to pull out a pitstop sized gap (around 30 seconds) from those behind them who had already done their mandatory stops.

WTF Race Control

Many hours later, the drivers were all in some sort of order and followed the safety car out of the pitlane for a rolling restart, which was no issue for De Vries, who just pulled away from a seemingly struggling Ghiotto. But that wasn’t the drama. In a confusing and massively anticlimactic move, all the cars which had already completed their mandatory pitstops, were arbitrarily listed as being one lap down. I mean, fine if the timing system didn’t acknowledge them being on the same lap because they never crossed the finish line when they got stuck behind the Schumacher/Calderón tangle, but there is a specific rule about allowing cars to be waved by to unlap themselves under the safety car, but who gives a fuck about the rules eh Race Control? That’s racing.

Schumacher dutifully took his drive-through penalty for causing a collision and then got a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, leaving Delétraz in the mythical net lead, except he was a lap down. THANKS RACE CONTROL. No one had told Delétraz or his team (or anyone for that matter) though, as he frantically tried to pass Correa. In reality it was to unlap himself, but in Delétraz-is-going-to-win dream world, he was trying to keep the gap between him and current leader De Vries (who had not yet stopped) down to below 30 seconds.

Out front, Ghiotto was putting pressure on De Vries, and they were both driving the life out of those new tyres to pull out a big lead that they didn’t even need. It was obviously a total waste for all the cars that put new tyres on as they didn’t actually have to battle a bunch of cars that were A WHOLE LAP DOWN. I mean, having no tyres to use for the race the next day is no big deal is it? THANKS RACE CONTROL.

Down at the back somewhere, Latifi and Hubert were having a proper battle. Latifi failed to overtake Hubert at the hairpin, leaving Hubert sliding down the barriers and somehow keeping it together. Latifi passed Hubert and then hit Gelael, almost causing a Schumacher-style pile up. Hubert drove past them both, Gelael got a damaged front wing, and Latifi was designated the title of “idiot”. Latifi wasn’t put off though, as he continued trying to pass Hubert until he was given a drive-though penalty for the Gelael incident. Latifi drove past Gelael retiring his car in the pits as he took his penalty. 

Lap 35 and Ghiotto was the first of those who had not stopped to come in, while De Vries pitted a lap later. It was a pretty ropey pitstop but De Vries somehow came out easily ahead of Ghiotto, who managed to lose time by hitting a barrier, apparently overriding his survival instincts when a race win was on the line. 

Three laps to go and Aitken was in the wall after being taken out by his Monaco nemesis Raghunathan. Correa had also crashed, although in typical Monaco TV director style we never saw that happen, but the safety car was deployed.

De Vries managed to survive one more safety car restart as it came in with one lap to go. He won with Ghiotto just behind him, followed by Matsushita. Wait. What? Literally no one knows how Matsushita got there as Sette Câmara had been third for basically the entire race. THANKS MONACO TV DIRECTOR. 

Roll on to the post-race press conference, and after some awkward “what is he doing there?” glances at Matsushita, someone plucked up the courage to ask him how he passed Sette Câmara. Matsushita explained, to everyone’s surprise and delight, that he overtook Sette Câmara on the outside of turn five. Even Ghiotto expressed some positive emotion.

Feeling unsettled about how the race had ended (I mean the press conference was lovely and all, but seriously, what the fuck was that!?), I headed over to the official F2 website to see what they had to say. Taking its lead from F1, where confusion and errors must be brushed under the carpet, the official F2 race report stated merely that De Vries and Ghiotto “both switched to new soft tyres in the pitlane, before De Vries who [sic] made light work of the restart and moseyed off back out in-front”. Sure. It was that simple. [And wtf, why did I need to use the one quote from the F2 website that wasn’t even written properly!?].

Then came the penalties….

Ghiotto was disqualified (HIDE!!!) because he was using rack stops that weren’t the right thickness. No one knows what that means except that he had to start the Sprint Race from the back of the grid. 

Raghunathan got a drive-through penalty for hitting Aitken, so instead of finishing 15th, he finished 15th plus 20 seconds. 

And just a final small point: the whole race result was contested because WHY THE FUCK WAS EVERYONE LISTED AS ONE LAP DOWN, sorry I mean, because “the grid order for the restart was not in accordance with the rules”.

The stewards investigated and found that the restart had indeed been done incorrectly, resulting in the timing system wrongly listing some cars as being down one lap, however “the stewards found no equitable method to resolve this error and accordingly leave the results as they stand.” Oh ok. Sure. No problem. At the very least the stewards could have given Race Control a drive-through penalty so Carlin and Delétraz could jeer at them as they went by.

Sprint Race: Only two safety cars

The grid for the Sprint Race lined up with Hubert in first place, followed by Delétraz, Markelov, Zhou and Boccolacci. De Vries was in 8th and Latifi in 12th.

While many of the drivers didn’t even have any new tyres to start the race on following the Feature Race debacle, importantly, Delétraz and Hubert did. Third-placed Markelov was on old tyres, but he’s well experienced, which clearly compensates for having actual rubber on the tyres.

Everyone made a good start, except Raghunathan who cut the first corner out completely. 

Hubert was in the lead, followed by Delétraz. Zhou managed to get past Markelov for third, while at the back, Ghiotto nudged Calderón into the barriers, and out came the safety car. 

The safety car restart was undramatic. Markelov was relentless in his pursuit of Zhou, but thanks to some coaching from his team and it being Monaco, Zhou managed to keep him behind until the next safety car, caused by Ghiotto and Raghunathan. Surprisingly it seemed to be Ghiotto’s fault, which, let’s face it, no one was expecting when we first just saw the two cars crashed into the barriers. 

Redemption for Delétraz?

After some breakdowns (Boccolacci) and cars being rammed (Alesi) by other cars (Gelael), everyone’s tyres seemed to be holding up fine, which to be honest was a bit disappointing. However, despite the top four remaining the same, it was somehow very exciting. Markelov was pushing Zhou to the limit, battling over third place, and Delétraz was doing the same to Hubert for the race win. 

With three laps to go, Delétraz was only half a second behind Hubert, who was starting to lose grip. By the last lap, Zhou had even caught up and was waiting to take advantage of any trouble that might befall the top two in their battle. Delétraz saw his chance as Hubert messed up the final corner. He made his move and the two were side by side on the start/finish “straight”, but Hubert just managed to stay in front, finishing 0.059 seconds ahead of Delétraz to take the win. Delétraz was brilliant, but so was Hubert. “That was exciting,” said the Arden dude to Hubert. Understatement.

No redemption for Delétraz

Despite having basically lost out on the chance of winning both races this weekend, Delétraz was beaming. Hubert was “really happy” and he and Louis smiled at each other when asked about the last corner race to the finish line. They both agreed it was “good fun”. Delétraz said Hubert did really well. It’s all so lovely, and this is my favourite press conference ever. Not least because Zhou is also there with his excellent hair. 

Zhou also had an intense race, which he monologued in great detail. Surely no one would need to ask any further questions. But then someone legit asked him to “summarise his WEEKEND”. Hold on while I put the kettle on.

Then came the penalties…. again…

Déjà vu as Ghiotto and Raghunathan got more penalties: a three-place grid drop for the next round for Ghiotto for knocking Raghunathan off the road. Raghunathan also got a three-place grid drop for cutting the corner at the beginning of the race. 

Championship standings

So to the championship standings and, despite his terrible weekend, Latifi managed to stay on top of the Drivers’ Championship as he got two points for the fastest lap. He is on 95 points, followed by Nyck de Vries on 94. Third-place Ghiotto is on 67, with Jack Aitken just behind him on 65.

*Note: I realise I express a kind of anti-Schumacher vibe, which I think is ingrained as a 1990s/2000s non-German/Italian F1-watching child. But just to be clear, watching Michael Schumacher driving through Maggotts and Becketts in the rain at Silverstone is still one of the most amazing things I ever saw.