De Vries has his eyes on the prize

The grid was full of Russians for the Russian event, with Matevos Isaakyan racing for the Sauber Junior team and Artem Markelov joining Arden, which should be particularly interesting as, when asked about the best overtaking spots at Sochi, he replied that you can overtake anywhere. 

All of the Renault juniors across F2 and F3 were wearing Hubert replica helmet designs for the weekend, which was a lovely tribute. 

Practice: DAMS looking strong

Raghunathan was the first out on track, and let’s face it, he needs all the practice he can get. While De Vries went off wide a tiny little bit and Aitken did a terrifying and accidental flat out overtake when he happened across De Vries going more slowly than him. Meanwhile, a bit of Markelov’s car fell off and Sette Câmara ran over it. Other than that, DAMS had it totally sorted, with Latifi and Sette Câmara in the top two spots, while De Vries was third.

Qualifying: A touch of rain?

The start of quali had a look about it like it might rain, so everyone headed out straight away, just in case. Ghiotto even said it was already raining on the main straight. But then everyone just stopped worrying about the rain and it was business as usual, quite literally, with De Vries taking pole position and Latifi in second. Ilott continued his run of excellent qualis by taking third. Ghiotto and Zhou were fourth and fifth.

Feature Race: Ghiotto’s charge

The only thing between De Vries and the championship title was however many laps of Feature Race. Win the race and the title was his. Latifi looked like he just wanted the whole thing to be over. 

De Vries did what he needed to do and made a good start to maintain his first position. Latifi kept second, while everyone else went wide. Zhou and Alesi went so wide that they got given five-second penalties for leaving the track and gaining and advantage. 

Markelov made it as far as lap two before he was out (for some reason) and the safety car was deployed. We would have to wait another day to see his overtaking anywhere moves. 

Ghiotto, on the alternative strategy, took advantage of Ilott’s quickly fading tyres and made the overtake for third position, before soon also catching and passing Latifi for second. Ilott then got overtaken by basically everyone on the alternative strategy and disappeared into mid-field obscurity.

While a confusing overtaking frenzy was happening, Ghiotto had caught up with De Vries and managed to overtake him. Schumacher, who was also on the alternative strategy, was on a similar trajectory to Ghiotto, and had now overtaken Latifi for third. 

After pitting, De Vries was the fastest on track by a country mile and it was looking good for him getting his revenge on Ghiotto, although Ghiotto was pushing hard and looked like he might be able to make it work. 

Schumacher, who had been in third until he locked up and let Matsushita past him, was seemingly having more problems as smoke started pouring out the back of his car, not that it bothered him as he carried on as usual. King, on the other hand, who was stuck behind Schumacher said he was struggling to breathe and “he needs to pit!”, which Schumacher dutifully did and retired.

Last lap twists

With three laps to go, Ghiotto came in for his pitstop. He came back out in fourth, behind Louis Delétraz, who had been running an anonymous race before suddenly appearing up there in a potential podium position. Delétraz did his best to defend against Ghiotto on the fresh new tyres, but it was never going to work out for him and Ghiotto quite quickly got past, making it up to third. Ghiotto soon caught Latifi, but couldn’t make a move, which was good news for De Vries, who had pulled out a bit of a lead and was now seemingly safe from Ghiotto and any last attack on his championship title. By the last lap, Ghiotto’s tyres had given up and Delétraz was coming right back at him. He made a daring last minute move to pass Ghiotto and take back third place. There was much excitement about this in the commentary box as well as my living room. Best end of a race ever. I’m sure Nyck de Vries agreed, because he was now F2 champion 2020 and couldn’t get out of the car fast enough to celebrate. As he tried to undo his seatbelt, he was doing that thing where the more you try to hurry, the more you slow yourself down. Latifi was a very gracious loser. His mouth was smiling but his eyes said he wanted to go and cry alone in a dark room.

At the post race press conference all the journalists were banned from asking De Vries questions about his championship because those had to be saved for the special championship press conference that would be held directly afterwards. So everything was hurried through until Latifi and Delétraz were kicked out and the focus could be solely on the new F2 champion. De Vries said he had expected to be more excited about winning the championship, but it was actually more relief. Well, even if he wasn’t, we were all expecting it. He now had the important job of trying to fit the FIA prize giving into his busy Formula E and WEC schedule, because he had already invited someone. Sly laugh and giggles. 

Sprint Race: “I was just praying for it to end”

The grid for the Sprint Race was lined up with a Russian on pole (Mazepin), a Russian in last place (Markelov) and a Russian somewhere in the middle (Isaakyan). Got all the bases covered there. Aitken was in second and Matsushita in third.

Aside from Sato, who stalled on the formation lap, the very start of the race seemed to go well for everyone. Turn two, however, was another story, as neither Aitken nor Matsushita made it round. While Aitken took to the the proper bollard-marked escape route, Mazepin took a short cut, which resulted in an unsuspecting Aitken crashing into the side of him, and Mazepin then crashing heavily into the side of Matsushita. They were both in the wall, but thankfully unhurt. Red flag.

The first two corners were also pretty eventful for Delétraz, who seemed to have hit someone and spun, and Markelov who apparently made up NINE places. There was, however, a risk that none of that even mattered, given the lengthy red flag period and Sunday morning time pressure on the Sprint Race (apparently there is some other racing that happens on Sunday afternoon), but then someone decided the F1 driver parade wasn’t super important, and there was time to fit in most of the F2 race. Yay!

After the massive delay, it was decided there would be 15 more laps (one behind the safety car and 14 racing), which was enough to mean that full points would be awarded for the race, as more than half distance would be run (the original race was 21 laps).

Matsushita and Mazepin were not taking the restart as they had been taken off to the hospital for precautionary checks. Ghiotto was now the leader, with De Vries and Ilott in second and third. 

No sooner had we restarted when race control started handing out the penalties from the first race start. Sette Câmara, Boschung and Raghunathan were all given five-second time penalties for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, while Delétraz got a ten-second time penalty for causing a collision, although who he actually hit is a mystery to me. 

The rest of the race was basically Ghiotto struggling to hold everyone back, and asking how many laps there were left, and Schumacher retiring. Despite being super close, De Vries couldn’t get close enough where it mattered and Ghiotto managed to hold onto the win, which he was typically unimpressed about. De Vries was second with Ilott in third.

Ghiotto said it was “probably one of the toughest races I’ve ever had… I was just praying for it to end… it was never ending…  why so many laps?… I’m a bit disappointed”.

Ilott claimed to be really happy about his second podium of the season, but his in-depth discussion of his tyre struggles suggested otherwise. Luca and Nyck provided some moral support, ” we still don’t get it [the tyres] either”. 

De Vries doesn’t care any more, he’s happy. He had a good weekend, won the championship, two podiums, and has his future sorted as a Mercedes Formula E driver.

Penalties

Following the big crash at the start of the Sprint Race, Mazepin was given a 15-place grid drop at the next race for “showing a total lack of due care for his fellow drivers”. 

Championship in the bag

Just because the fight for the championship title has been decided, doesn’t mean it’s all over. Latifi still needs to hold off Ghiotto for second place, with only ten points between them going into the final round. Sette Câmara is also keen on holding onto his fourth place so he has enough Super Licence points, but Aitken is only six points behind. So much to play for… really.