In one word: Monaco-esque
Monaco, the jewel in the formula one crown and also a quite nice place for F2 drivers to drive around, or so they say. Until they get frustrated because they can’t overtake the car in front, or they get frustrated because they try to overtake the car in front but get crashed into a wall instead. Still, at least we know we can enjoy the lovely slow-mo shots of cars brushing the barriers, intersected by shots of massive yachts. Also Ralph Boschung was back after his neck injury in the last round. Welcome back Ralph!
Practice: Boring
The key question of the weekend was whether the drivers would be able to get around without having a big pile up or slow crashing into the barriers. The answer for Jake Hughes was no, as he ran into a wall. Luckily for him, however, he had learnt a necessary skill for Monaco: reverse.
Everyone was well behaved and clearly enjoying speeding round the streets and setting fast laps. F2 veteran Ralph Boschung sat atop the timing screens for a while, until last week’s hero Felipe Drugovich went quicker with just under ten minutes to go. They were all very close, but it was Drugovich who ended with the fastest lap, followed by Boschung and rookie Dennis Hauger.
The whole thing was very civilised and un-F2, but it’s important to impress all the posh onlookers of Monaco after all.
Qualifying: Confusing
As is tradition for F2 at Monaco (and to avoid lots of crashing and a late night for the stewards), the field was split into two qualifying groups. The odd car numbers versus the evens, with a ballot to decide which group should go first. Pole position would go to the fastest driver (obviously), 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. Each group would have 16 minutes to prove their worth. I’m sure 16 is a very logical number of minutes.
The ballot determined that the odd numbers had to go first. For those few who don’t keep 100% on top of F2 driver numbers, the odd numbers, Group A, consisted of Liam Lawson, Jack Doohan, Dennis Hauger, Amaury Cordeel, Calan Williams, Ayumu Iwasa, Ralph Boschung, Frederik Vesti, Marcus Armstrong, Felipe Drugovich and Cem Bölükbasi. The first five minutes was just them all checking they could actually drive around Monaco a bit fast, then the second five minutes was them all having a go at a proper qualifying lap, during which Drugovich went fastest. Then the last five minutes was a free for all of fast lap times, with Drugovich going even faster and Boschung (who had been looking promising) hitting the wall slightly and ruining his hopes for any faster laps.
As everyone was doing their final laps, Drugovich was suddenly also in the wall, bringing out the yellow flags and meaning all those behind him should slow down. Except they didn’t. Lawson sped across the line to take P1, while Iwasa followed for second. The chequered flag was waved and the next group were shuffled out. For Group B to have a chance at pole, they needed to beat Lawson’s time of 1:21.229, but then again maybe not, depending on how the stewards felt about yellow flag infringements.
Group B consisted of Jehan Daruvala, Marino Sato, Logan Sargeant, Jüri Vips, Théo Pourchaire, Clément Novalak, Enzo Fittipaldi, Jake Hughes, Roy Nissany, Richard Verschoor and Olli Caldwell. In a similar approach to Group A, it was all under control until the last five minutes (aside from Cordeel getting a warning for erratic driving in the pit lane and Daruvala being all over the place and losing his shit at his team).
With two and a half minutes to go, Vips went fastest and then Pourchaire. While they were fighting it out at the top of the times, Verschoor, who had been having some issues was just coming out to set his first proper lap, until Hughes crashed. Thankfully he was fine, but Verschoor’s qualifying was not, and neither was Group B’s hope at being the pole group. The session would not be resumed and Pourchaire’s fastest lap was only 1:21.535; not fast enough to beat Group A’s speedy lap times.
The amalgamated results meant that the press conference consisted of Lawson (pole), Pourchaire (second place) and Iwasa (third place). Lawson and Iwasa were looking pleased until asked about the yellow flags, when they looked sheepish and a bit uncomfortable. Lawson used the press conference to practice his speech for the stewards, while Iwasa simply claimed he hadn’t seen any yellow flags. Pourchaire was typical Pourchaire, all smiles, saying “P2 is fine”.
Many hours later, after apparently sifting through hordes of potential offences, the stewards decided that Lawson and Iwasa had failed to slow for the yellow flags during their final qualifying laps. Both drivers had their times deleted and Lawson was given a five-place grid drop for the Sprint Race, while Iwasa given a ten-place grid drop because his offence was under double-waved yellow flags (as opposed to a single yellow flag for Lawson). In Group B, Caldwell was found guilty of impeding Sato and was handed a three-place grid drop for the next race. All in all, this meant that Drugovich had the fastest Group A lap. Drugovich’s time was also still faster than Pourchaire’s Group B time, meaning he qualified on pole position. Pourchaire was second and Doohan third.
Sprint Race: Weird
The grid for the Sprint Race was determined by taking the final qualifying results, reversing the top ten and then applying the penalties (probably). As a result, Hughes started on pole, Hauger was second and Daruvala third. Missing form the grid was Boschung, who withdrew from the event, once again, due to his ongoing neck injury. Sad times.
If Hauger had any feelings of hopelessness at being stuck behind Hughes for the whole race, these disappeared along with Hughes’s chances of victory, as his car refused to move off the start line. Somehow everyone avoided crashing into the back of him and it was business as usual for the other 20 drivers. Hauger took the lead, with Daruvala second and Armstrong third. There was no relaxing though, as Pourchaire was doing some actual overtaking, having passed a whole TWO cars in the opening laps. Drugovich, however, did some reverse overtaking and was at the back, having apparently been involved in some incident at the start. The first we heard of it was when he and his team were screaming “Wets, wets, wets” at each other as he came into the pits. Apparently needing new tyres anyway, they were hoping that the one spot of rain they’d seen earlier that day would suddenly turn into a deluge, forcing everyone else to also pit for wet tyres. There was no rain. After a few awkward laps, MP Motorsport were soon telling him to pit and stop the car, while the stewards were handing him a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Meanwhile, Novalak’s race wasn’t going much better. After minding his own business in 14th place, Iwasa tried to overtake him, but there wasn’t enough room for Iwasa to make it around the corner and so he instead ran Novalak into the wall. “What a ******* idiot man, what a joke” declared Novalak, while Iwasa got a ten-second penalty and headed to the pits for a new front wing. The Safety Car was deployed and everyone drove in formation, just a little slower than they were doing before, including Drugovich who was now back out, four laps down and on his wet tyres, despite it still being completely dry.
Once the Safety Car was over, the procession continued, except for Drugovich who went back in the pits after getting another five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane and a radio message from his team telling him he needed to do a stop/go penalty. Who needs stewards when teams can hand out their own penalties? Drugovich’s engineer then warned him to be more careful about his speed in the pit lane, to which Drugovich promptly replied, “Well the pit limiter is wrong then.” Drugovich spent a few more laps, toiling around on the wet tyres and getting increasingly annoyed with his engineer before he was put out of his misery and told he could stop. “Are you sure I can retire?” he asked desperately, before heading back to the pits for a final time to end his race. I’m not even going to attempt to understand what that was.
After Drugovich retired, we were bereft of anything exciting to watch until Caldwell basically ran into the back of Sato, fighting over 15th place, but they both seemed fine. Then it was the end of the race. Hauger won, Daruvala was still in second and Armstrong was still in third. Just like the beginning.
Everyone seemed very happy, apart from when they were sternly being told that they must spray their podium not-champagne forward over the street and NOT backwards. Heaven forbid they may spray any royals that weren’t in attendance because it’s only F2. In the press conference, Hauger said winning Monaco was like a dream, Daruvala said he never had a chance of getting past Hauger and Armstrong seemed so worn down by his whole career that he couldn’t manage to be enthusiastic, even though he tried to use positive words such as “good.”
Feature Race: Pitstoppy
Drugovich was on pole for the Feature Race, with Pourchaire second and Doohan third, while Lawson (fifth) and Nissany (eleventh) never even made the start, as they both stopped on the formation lap and were rolled back to the pits.
The race start was undramatic at the front of the field, with the top four all remaining the same (Drugovich, Pourchaire, Doohan, Vips), however the rest was all kinds of chaos. Somehow Hauger (who started on the ultra extra soft tyres) was up to fifth place, having started ninth, while Verschoor, who started last, was up to 17th. Once the panic of the first lap was over, everyone settled into their positions until the first round of pit stops and Nissany’s drive-through penalty for a start infringement. Then they all drove round a bit more and we had a quick cut to Lewis Hamilton walking. Live action drama.
By now, Hauger, who had pitted for the less soft tyres, had caught up with those who were yet to do their mandatory pit stops (including the race leaders) and was looking like he might get close enough to challenge for the win, or rather, to give us some excitement we imagined that he might be challenging for the win if he could keep going really fast. Leader Drugovich helped add to the excitement by declaring “I’m really struggling with my tyres, but I don”t want to pit”. Nissany, however, pitted to retire from the race, while Cordeel retired from the race by crashing into the wall. The Safety Car was called and everyone who was yet to change their tyres dived into the pit lane, regardless of whether they wanted to or not.
Drugovich had a horrible pit stop, but was saved by Pourchaire having a similar experience. Somehow Drugovich came out ahead of Pourchaire and they both trundled down the pit lane together, straight into the path of the marshals, who were busy pushing Cordeel’s broken car up the pit lane, towards the oncoming pit stoppers. A small queue ensued, as they waited for the marshals to move; Drugovich in the lead, Pourchaire second and Vips now third, having beaten Doohan with a faster pit stop. Even the marshal delay and terrible pit stops weren’t able to help Hauger though. His chances of a podium ruined by everyone else getting a quick pit stop while he drove around slowly behind the Safety Car.
Once the Safety Car ended, we were treated to a couple of “racing” laps until Novalak’s nightmare weekend continued, as he was nudged by Lawson and ended up in the wall. “Lawson is the biggest **** on the track.” Novalak proclaimed. The Safety Car was back out.
In the closing laps and back to green-flag racing, Drugovich was struggling with his tyres and Pourchaire was so close he was almost running into the back of him. There was other drama too, as Lawson pulled into the pits to retire and some actual overtaking happened in the midfield. The final lap was tense, with Drugovich making a mistake, but not enough of one to give Pourchaire the lead, and Iwasa bashed into Williams over the final point, leaving them both stricken at the hairpin in a classic lame Monaco crash.
After crossing the finishing line Drugovich declared, “Oh my God, that was so hard,” while Pourchaire sounded disappointed, despite still smiling. Vips discussed all the things that went wrong for him over the weekend, “I’m just happy to get a result.”
Championship standings: Same (but different)
After yet more winning, Drugovich is even further in the lead of the championship (with 113 points), while Pourchaire remains second (81 points). Daruvala is also still third (53 points). Lawson’s terrible weekend, sees him drop from fourth to eighth (38 points), with Armstrong now in fourth (50 points), Vips fifth (49 points), Doohan sixth (45 points) and Fittipaldi seventh (42 points). When you’re behind both Armstrong and Vips, you know your luck has made a turn in the wrong direction.
The next round is Baku, which is like a more chaotic and frightening version of Monaco, with a castle.