Schumacher and Ilott try their hardest not to win the championship

The moment everyone had been either over-excitedly waiting for (Wow!! The championship decider on this completely crazy weird new chaos track!!) or generally grumbling about (What!? The championship decider on this completely crazy weird new chaos track!?) finally arrived. The randomness of the whole situation was further enhanced by Lewis Hamilton getting COVID and the driver shuffling that then ensued, resulting in Jack Aitken being promoted to F1 duties at Williams and my favourite F2 blogger Ralph Boschung making an early comeback with Campos (having previously announced that he would have the seat in 2021). Oh and of course we had the small matter of who was going to win the F2 championship to think about.

Practice: Schumacher and Ilott drive round a bit

It was bumpy. Really bumpy. And fast. In fact, practice was basically just 40 minutes of everyone bumping about really fast until Markelov’s engine gave up with less than five minutes to go. The red flag was out and the was the session over. It was Carlin who had mastered the crazy fast, short lap set-up, with Tsunoda the fastest and Daruvala in second.

Qualifying: Schumacher crashes, Ilott is slow

With a whole 30 minutes for qualifying, each driver had time to do a thousand laps and that’s exactly what they did. There was so much happening I momentarily forgot that it wasn’t actually a race.

Championship leader Schumacher was the only one playing it cool, having waited in the pits rather than joining in with the racing that wasn’t racing. This strategy did not work so well for him. His attempt at a flying lap was ruined by Markelov coming out of the pits and he soon found that he was only in 16th place and complaining “I’ve got no rears left”.

Qualifying, in fact, looked pretty desperate for everyone, apart from Tsunoda, Mazepin and Daruvala, who were comfortably managing to hang out in the top spots while everyone else failed to improve, struggling to warm the tyres, get to grips with the weirdness that was the second sector and find space in the traffic. Ghiotto was struggling most of all, as he got himself stuck in the gravel. The red flag was out with only four minutes remaining on the clock, which might normally have meant the end of the session, but thanks to the ridiculous shortness of the track, there was still time for loads of laps and so they all piled out again once Ghiotto’s car had been cleared away.

The last few minutes looked very stressful, with everyone fighting for a space and locking up all over the place. Schumacher was apparently the most stressed, given that he was yet to do an actually fast lap. As he tried to battle his way through to find a space, he and Nissany managed to crash into each other. Red flag. Now the session really was over and it was a disaster for Schumacher’s championship because he was only 18th and title rival Ilott never qualifies outside the top two. Except Ilott was in ninth, in his second worst qualifying position of the year. Apparently they were both trying equally hard not to win the championship. Tsunoda was on pole, Mazepin was second and Daruvala third.

At the press conference, Tsunoda said he was just going to do his job in the race, Mazepin clearly wanted to leave and Daruvala said he was happy, but didn’t do a convincing job of showing it. Emotions riding high.

Feature Race: Schumacher and Ilott drive about in the middle

Mazepin made a bad start, which he turned into a good start, overtaking Tsunoda for the lead of the race. Shwartzman made a great start, overtaking both Daruvala and Tsunoda for second place. Ilott, meanwhile was still in the middle and Schumacher only made up two places, which was rubbish by his standards. 

While Ilott couldn’t do much more about his position, everyone else was basically just driving about three-wide, including Schumacher, who was desperately overtaking everyone he could see, and looked like he was imminently heading for an accident, which almost happened courtesy of his weekend nemesis Nissany, but luckily they both came off better than in qualifying and Schumacher was up to 12th place. 

At the front, second place Shwartzman had been looking close to leader Mazepin, but then Tsunoda decided to go for it and took second place back off Shwartzman. The three were then just in a constant battle for the lead, which continued all the way to the pitstops, through the pitstops and after the pitstops, but ultimately, despite some dramatic chopping and changing, Mazepin stayed in front.

All this battling allowed Drugovich to catch up behind, while Zhou who was on the alternative tyre strategy was doing a characteristic late charge as well. Five-way lead battle incoming. Drugovich and Zhou soon passed Shwartzman and were right up behind Tsunoda and Mazepin, who were themselves still fighting each other. Tsunoda eventually managed to break free for the lead, albeit slightly off track, and despite Mazepin’s questionable defensive moves, Zhou also flew by on his new tyres to take second place, and Drugovich was forced to find new lines, on and off the track, to get around Mazepin, who really was not for letting him past, rules or no rules.   

At the end of the race, everyone was under investigation for the closing lap shenanigans, except Zhou who already knew he had a five-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane. Several hours later, Tsunoda was declared as still the winner, Zhou was still in second, but Drugovich was now third, because Mazepin got two time penalties for his dodgy driving, which dropped him to ninth, behind Ilott and Schumacher who both spent most of the race driving around in the middle together, meaning the championship remained in the balance.  

Sprint Race: Schumacher destroys his tyres… and so does Ilott

Having avidly watched every single second of F2 in 2020 and spent literal months dreaming of this final race showdown round the Bahrain outer circuit, I missed the beginning of the race for no reason whatsoever, but it’s not like anything really significant happened in the opening laps… did it? Thank god for replays.

Ticktum was on pole, with Daruvala in second, Schumacher in third and Ilott fourth. Schumacher made a good start, challenging Ticktum for the lead, but then he locked up, leaving him with a MASSIVE flat spot and allowing Daruvala into second place. The big question though was whether Schumacher would even make it to the end of the race on those tyres, because that vibration did not look comfortable.  

After some battling with Shwartzman, Ilott was firmly in fourth place behind Schumacher, but really needed to get past if he was going to win the championship. Despite Schumacher struggling with the flat spot, he did manage to keep Ilott behind him for quite a while, but Ilott eventually got past, while Schumacher couldn’t drive any more and had to make a totally unplanned pitstop for new tyres. Ilott now needed to hurry up and catch Daruvala and Ticktum ahead if he was going to get the points he needed to beat Schumacher to the title, but Shwartzman behind was giving him a hard time. This was obviously helpful for Shwartzman’s Prema teammate Schumacher, but then Ilott’s teammate Zhou came to the rescue and overtook Shwartzman, leaving Ilott free to go after the race leaders. At the time, this honestly felt like the most exciting thing that had ever happened in the history of racing.

However, all the fighting with Schumacher earlier meant that Ilott had completely run out of tyres and disaster struck his championship hopes as everyone was soon overtaking him. Schumacher, who was down in 20th after his pitstop, desperately asked his engineer “will we make it to P8?” to get the points he needed, but his engineer told him “don’t worry about that, Ilott’s got no tyres”. 

Even though the title battle was over, the fight for the race win was still full on. Ticktum and Daruvala fought hard, nearly hitting each other, but eventually Daruvala made it past, and Ticktum was left worrying about Tsunoda behind him, who was doing that classic Tsunoda thing where he charges through the whole field. By now, Ticktum was really struggling with his tyres and locking up at every corner yet still somehow kept Tsunoda behind him, until the last corner of the last lap when Tsunoda overtook him, leaving Ticktum in third, Tsunoda second, and Daruvala with his first F2 win and Schumacher as the champion. 

I’m sure loads of other stuff probably happened at the back, but to be honest I didn’t even notice and who really cares? The only thing that mattered was a totally overwhelmed looking F2 2020 champion in Mick Schumacher, “I love you guys, you really are the best,” he told his happy team as he tried not to cry.

Championship Standings that literally mean nothing

Mick winning the championship and going to F1 was lovely and all, but the inevitable sadness of the end of the F2 season was watching Callum Ilott fight valiantly through the year only to disappear into the ether for 2021. Could we please just have an end to an F2 season where we don’t all have to cry please!?