Teamwork makes the dream work
(unless you’re Drugovich)
Roy Nissany kickstarted the weekend by featuring in the Formula One free practice on Friday morning. Despite the bitching about him not being good enough, it seemed he was indeed somewhat good enough and was only last by three tenths of a second (albeit on different tyres to his teammate, but then who actually knows anything about what tyres mean this season).
Practice: Team in the pitlane to the rescue!
It was co-commentator Alex Brundle who first offered up this round’s proposal for understatement of the season, when stating that “Lundgaard struggled with tyre degradation last weekend,” (he wore his tyre out completely until it entirely fell apart, left him driving about on three wheels and destroyed his whole race, but sure I guess there was a struggle involved).
On track, Nissany was having a different kind of struggle, as he clearly discovered he had waaaaaaay less grip in an F2 car than an F1 car and went straight through the gravel trap.
Yuki Tsunoda’s struggles were limited to the end of the pitlane, where he stalled while trying to do a practice start. Cue a bunch of Carlin mechanics running down the pitlane in overalls and lugging all the starting equipment in 30+ degree heat, just so he can give it another go.
Meanwhile, Sato was in the gravel trap and the red flag was out.
As practice resumed, so did Tsunoda’s battle with being stuck at the end of the pitlane, when he failed to get going while queuing for the session restart. It at least meant good exercise for his mechanics, which I’m sure they appreciated. Any potential clutch issues, however, did not translate into problems on track, as Tsunoda ended the session in third place, behind Schumacher in second and fastest man Ticktum.
Qualifying: Team strategy for the pole!
I missed the very start of qualifying, because F1 TV (those who know, know). Thanks F1 TV. All I know is that Piquet was grumbling something about teammate Delétraz on the radio and was being told, “Don’t bllleeeeeeeeeeeepppppp each other.”
After they had all set their first timed laps, Shwartzman was on provisional pole with Zhou and Ilott behind him. With traffic being a potential issue later on, UNI-Virtuosi decided to run Zhou and Ilott in The Gap, between everyone else doing their first set of timed laps and their second. Ilott did a fantastic lap, propelling himself to provisional pole, while Zhou did not, and stayed behind Shwartzman.
Confirming UNI-Virtuosi’s good decision to go out before everyone else, Dan Ticktum complained, “the traffic is so bad.” By this time Ilott had got out of his car and was just sitting on the pitwall, watching everyone trying to beat his time.
Old favourite Drugovich did a good lap, moving up to second and then Shwartzman, also moving up to second, but soon no one could improve on their times and Ilott’s pole was still intact. It was only a stressfully late Zhou that could threaten Ilott’s pole, and only if he actually got a move on to cross the line before time ran out, which he did. We all watched on, Ilott included. Sector one was good… Sector two was good… Sector three was… slow. All Zhou could manage was third place, behind Ilott and Shwartzman.
Ilott was understandably happy, particularly as he had apparently injured his neck while sleeping (?) and was in some pain. It was mentioned at the press conference that his pole seemed to be thanks to the strategy, to which he answered, “Errrrrr, I probably would have been ok if I had gone out later.” That’s the kind of confidence of a champion.
The press conference was long due to the perfect combination of Shwartzman and Zhou, the most comprehensive question answerers in F2 history. During the glorious 21 minutes, Shwartzman managed to detail his entire thought process for how he would approach the race, and explain weekend by weekend in detail why every one of his qualifying sessions had not gone well. He also managed to avoid any controversy over the Schumacher incident from the previous week (probably much to the disappointment of every journalist in the virtual room) by saying that it’s always hard to lose a victory, but it’s not that hardest thing he’s lost in life (heartbreaking), that he tries to turn pain into a strength and that Silverstone is behind them now, so he is moving forward. More solid F2 life advice, confirming that a book is definitely needed. Ilott and Zhou both said that the team were chill about their own Silverstone mishaps (when they both inexplicably spun and threw away their races), because “everyone makes mistakes.” Well sure, Ilott might get away with rubbish spins at Ferrari, but I can’t imagine Renault being so laid back, that’s probably why Zhou was looking slightly less relaxed…
Feature Race: Team strategy for the win!
We started three wide going into the first corner, with Shwartzman just managing to keep the lead, Schumacher passing Zhou for third place and second-place Ilott remarking “that was fucking close.” It was all very frantic and exciting, but everyone got to take a breather when Armstrong (who started 19th) managed to spin all on his own, bringing out the Safety Car.
When the Safety Car ended, Shwartzman got to work trying to pull a lead from Ilott, but Ilott managed to keep up with him until around lap eight, when Shwartzman began to struggle with his tyres and Ilott made the overtake. Schumacher, on the alternative strategy, was now also beginning to bother Shwartzman, which was more than a little tense as we all got flashbacks to last weekend’s shenanigans, but it was fine.
After the normal strategy people had all pitted, we got treated to some slow mos of boring overtakes from earlier in the race because everyone was managing their tyres and it was dull. Those who had pitted had to manage them to make sure they would last to the end of the race, and those who had not pitted were just screwed driving around on old tyres, as evidenced by Schumacher who could barely keep it on the road and Ticktum who let us know that “the deg is horrible mate.”
Following several more pitstops and complaints about tyre degradation, what would normally be a back-of-the-race unimportant incident changed everything. Gelael and Alesi had a coming together, resulting in Gelael needing a new nose cone, Alesi spinning, a Safety Car and a pit-stop frenzy for people who wanted actually working tyres, including Ilott, Shwartzman and Zhou. This all suddenly left Tsunoda in the lead of the race, as he and his terrible tyres were told to stay out because “we’re going for the win!” Matsushita, on the other hand, did not have terrible tyres, as he had run a very long first stint and his mandatory pit stop had fallen during the Safety Car, saving him soooooo much time compared to everyone else who took their pit stops during normal racing speeds, and catapulting him from 18th to third. This was great news for MP Motorsport, except that in order to pit Matsushita when they did, they had to make teammate Drugovich wait an extra lap for his pit stop, which had they not done, could arguably have seen Drugovich in Matsushita’s place. Cue Drugovich’s wrath and that of the whole of Brazil.
Despite the state of his tyres, Tsunoda made a good restart and put up an excellent defence against Ilott and Matsushita in yet another exciting three-way battle for the lead. As if gaining 15 positions wasn’t enough for Matsushita, he then made a move around the outside of Ilott, but Ilott didn’t give up easily and they banged wheels a bit until Matsushita eventually got the place. Meanwhile, Shwartzman was also on a bit of a charge, passing Mazepin and Ilott. It was basically too much overtaking to follow. No one could cope, especially not Ilott who was told by his engineer to be cool and regroup. Matsushita wasn’t done though, as he made a decisive DRS move on Tsunoda to take the lead of the race. Shwartzman also then took advantage and overtook Tsunoda for second. Even if Tsunoda’s tyres could have handled an attempt at fighting back, there wasn’t time, as Samaia and Nissany had a collision, with Nissany going into the wall and the Safety Car being deployed.
By this time, the race had been going on so long we were on the countdown clock and there were only 19 seconds left when the Safety Car ended, meaning one final flying lap of chaos, with the victims of said chaos being mostly Ilott and Tsunoda, as the Safety Car restart turned into a 10-car wide melee of overtaking. The only thing that can be said for sure, is that Matsushita won and Shwartzman was second. Everything else was utter confusion, as Mazepin, who had finished third, was given a five-second time penalty for presumably a Safety Car infringement, but who knows really, it’s not like it’s important for them to tell us why someone lost their podium place. Zhou was then promoted to third. Piquet also had a five-second time penalty (although he finished in P god-only-knows). Aitken had mysteriously retired, despite everyone swearing they saw him on the last lap, and Gelael was left stopped randomly in the middle of the track, apparently to be extricated from the car and taken to hospital with a fractured vertebra. It turned out much later that Aitken and Gelael had had an incident on the last lap, whereby Gelael was launched off a kerb before crashing forcefully back down. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery for him.
I would have watched the press conference just to try and find out what actually happened, but as per usual F1 TV didn’t upload it and as ever I’m not reading a transcript, but what we do know about the race is that Ilott thought it was “a fucking joke” because he said so on the radio and that Drugovich found it “VERY difficult to accept” that his teammate won instead of him, because he wrote it all over social media.
Sprint Race: Team strategy not wanted or needed
It seemed to be Ghiotto who was on pole for the Sprint Race and we only had 21 cars on the grid, as Gelael will reportedly take a few weeks to recover from his injury. Alesi made it only 20 cars actually starting from the grid after he failed to get off the line for the formation lap and had to start from the pitlane (he was 20th anyway…).
As the top three were asked about their expectations for the the race, Drugovich used the time to instead vent his rage against his team and their preferential treatment of Matsushita the day before. The attitude of a champion (let’s face it, Senna and Schumacher wouldn’t have put up with that kind of thing either).
Drugovich’s rage propelled him straight past Ghiotto, right from the start, while Schumacher made another good start from third, also almost managing to get past Ghiotto, but they banged wheels a bit and Schumacher lost, before also losing to Ilott who overtook him for third. Drugovich, meanwhile, let them battle it out behind him as he set off into the distance.
As everybody hit what Alex B described as “the struggle zone” with their tyres, Lundgaard found something different to complain about instead, “mate, we’ve got no top speed, this is incredible,” and with that he continued his miserable weekend, hanging around outside of the points.
Up front (but not as far up front as Drugovich and his gigantic lead), Ilott was having a go at Ghiotto, which Ghiotto wasn’t happy about so he once again employed the barging wheels technique to keep Ilott at bay. It worked and allowed Schumacher to almost try to also get involved, but he was really too busy just struggling with his tyres.
Ticktum carried on his mantra for the weekend, “the deg is so bad, the deg is so bad,” and decided to pit, despite it not being the done thing in the Sprint Race, as then did everyone else who couldn’t be bothered to struggle on anymore (Aitken, Shwartzman and Alesi). Ilott potentially should have done the same (although he probably didn’t have the luxury of any tyres to use after yesterday’s unexpected two-stop race), as everyone started overtaking him and he was soon down from third to eighth, with a desperate Lundgaard behind him chasing for the final points place. In the last few corners we saw the return of Lungegaard, as he went entirely off the track before sending it past Ilott and straight to the stewards office, who decided incredibly quickly that it was a definite no for that overtake and a definite yes to a five-second penalty.
Finishing the race several hours ahead of everyone else, Drugovich was told “perfect mate,” by his engineer, which just prompted Drugovich to remind the team that “I deserved it yesterday, but I’ll take this one”. I dread to think what would have happened if he hadn’t won. Ghiotto came home in second place and Schumacher in third.
After the race, Drugovich let us know that he was still disappointed about the Feature Race, but this win did make up for it and then tactfully avoided talking about it in the press conference, until one of the journalists went in to poke the bear (from a safe distance), only to be told that he was looking forward now because he’s following the Robert Shwartzman life coaching programme.
Team Championship Standings
Urgh, there’s a Teams’ Championship, as if anyone ever notices. UNI-Virtuosi are in the lead.
For the Drivers’ Championship, Ilott is still in the lead (121 points), while Shwartzman is second (103 points) and Lundgaard is down in third (87) after his literal pointless weekend. Tsunoda is fourth (82 points) and Schumacher is fifth (79 points).