In the gravel trap: Winners and Losers
This round promised to be exciting just because Mugello. At the very least it’s nice to look at. “Have you raced here before?’ was the key question of the weekend. The answer was mostly no.
Practice: Aitken in the gravel trap
It was busy on track, as everyone seemed to be getting genuine practice in, which was an extra delight for co-commentator Alex Brundle who was clearly relishing every opportunity to say each corner name. There was also much ever-controversial discussion about track limits, as apparently these were defined by the gravel traps rather than the actual edge of the track, and therefore varied dependent on how bold drivers were feeling. On the one hand we had Dan Ticktum, described by Alex B as “a man undefined by track limits,” while on the other hand (or actually just even further over on the first hand) we had Jack Aitken who was suddenly fully beached in a gravel trap at the most awkward part of the circuit, perched on top of a hill surrounded by track on every side. He stood there looking confused about how to get out, as did the marshals, before the world’s longest Virtual Safety Car was called, along with a recovery vehicle, which Aitken duly trudged behind, through the gravel and all the way to safety.
At the end of the session, Jüri Vips (who was still subbing for injured Gelael) was fastest, with Ghiotto second and Drugovich third. Championship contenders Schumacher, Shwartzman and Ilott were in close competition with each other but no one else, down in 12th, 13th and 14th.
Qualifying: Schumacher, Ghiotto, Vips and Alesi in the gravel trap
Qualifying got off to a dramatic start, as Schumacher lost it and found himself in the gravel. It really looked like his session was over, but he somehow managed to crawl out of there and back to the pits. Ghiotto then did the same, pushing the track limits and having to power through the gravel trap to get back on track.
Lundgaard found that the parts of the track that weren’t gravel were actually much faster and took provisional pole position by a mile, with 20 minutes still to go, threatened only by Ticktum who continued to master the track-gravel ratio better than most. In the second part of the session everyone was blocking each other, Monza-style, characterised by Lundgaard’s question, “What the fuck is Mazepin doing…? Fucking idiot,” and Vips getting a three-place grid penalty for impeding Delétraz.
Quarrelling with Mazepin didn’t slow Lundgaard down though, as he went even faster than before, to set an even faster pole position time. Ticktum was only five thousandths of a second behind him, and the usually speedy Ilott could only manage third place, while Vips and Alesi went through the gravel. Championship heavyweights Shwartzman and Schumacher were all the way down in ninth and fifteenth, respectively. Classic Shwartzman qualifying.
In the press conference, Lundgaard finally declared that he no longer dislikes Silverstone that much, and everyone could breathe a collective sigh of relief as we permanently closed that chapter. Christian also said that it was his first time at Mugello and said it was “interesting” and “different,” which sounds like a standard way of describing something you’re not convinced that you like, but you don’t want to offend anyone. Ticktum, meanwhile, was a bit unhappy about being reminded of losing his win last weekend, but still mentioned it himself three times. Ilott was also less pleased when he was asked about the championship, choosing instead to talk about the picture on the wall behind. “Thank you Kimi,” was the interviewer’s response. Ilott to Alfa Romeo 2021, confirmed.
Feature Race: Zhou in the gravel trap
There was drama before the race even started, as Lundgaard, Shwartzman and Aitken were all put under investigation for an incident coming out of the pitlane, where Shwartzman essentially pulled out of the pits just in front of Aitken, they nearly hit each other, and then Lundgaard also piled in for good measure. It was promptly declared that the incident would be investigated after the race. WTF Race Control? It’s not like it’s important to know whether the guy on pole position and one of the main championship contenders have penalties before we start the race is it? (I mean nothing came of it, but it definitely felt like an outrage at the time).
The top-three were positive as ever ahead of the race, with Ilott echoing Lundgaard’s sentiment about Mugello being “interesting” before actually clarifying that the track is “hard”. Ticktum said he was just happy to be where he was, and Lundgaard gave away his plan of having a good start, pulling a gap and managing his tyres. Easy.
As usual, Ilott was right not to be too optimistic, as he had another terrible start, dropping to seventh place, while Lundgaard and Ticktum got away well. Behind them, Ghiotto and Armstrong were having a proper exciting battle (which Ghiotto won for third), and Shwartzman, Schumacher and Zhou were having an equally intense battle, but over 12th place. With much overtaking happening in the mid-filed, courtesy of an amazingly powerful DRS effect on the long main straight, it was pretty much impossible to keep up with the order, but it was very exciting.
Up front, Ticktum looked like he was starting to put Lundgaard under some pressure, edging ever closer to the DRS zone, at which point point Lundgaard chose to take his mandatory pit stop, while everyone else stayed out for several laps, leaving Lundgaard in full last place. When the others eventually did decide they wanted to pit, it was still looking good for Lundgaard, but slightly less so for Ticktum, who lost his place to Ilott and had to have a little battle with him to regain it. That wasn’t the only battle Ticktum had though, as soon Ghiotto had got past Ilott and was coming for Ticktum. Ghiotto soon passed, and it wasn’t long before Ilott was back to have another go at Ticktum as well.
Mid-field, things were also not going well for Shwartzman, who had been overtaken by loads of people, had a weirdly timed pit stop and was now pulled over at the side of the road to retire.
More positively, Lundgaard was by now three seconds ahead of Ghiotto (who would be in second place once all the pit stops were done), but Ghiotto had picked up the pace, prompting Lundgaard’s engineer to tell him to do the same. “I. am. driving. as. fast. as. I. can.” came Lundgaard’s reply. It seemed it wasn’t just Lundgaard who was driving as fast as he could, as not only was Ghiotto now closing in, but Ticktum and Ilott were coming as well. Who doesn’t love a four-way battle for the lead of the race (I kept telling my Lundgaard-fan self)?
It was slightly less exciting as Giuliano Alesi’s car broke, smoking everywhere, and leading him to pull off to the side, resulting in a Virtual Safety Car and an unhappy Jean Alesi shaking his head. Then it got more exciting again, as the marshals were unable to fit Alesi’s F2 car through a motorbike-sized gap in the fence and a full Safety Car was called, meaning a definite pending four-way race for the lead, if not more. A load of mid-fielders took the opportunity to pit for soft tyres, while Ticktum echoed everybody’s thoughts, “Why is it taking so long?”
As the Safety Car eventually went back to the pits, Lundgaard bunched everyone up as much as he could to stop them getting a run at him along the start/finish straight; it worked and he kept his lead. Relief. Ticktum’s start was less good as he got hit by Tsunoda (who then got a five-second penalty), an event that he summarised as “the race is finished because of this stupid little bloke.” However, Tsunoda wasn’t the only one crashing into people, as Zhou was suddenly crashed in the barrier, Aitken was stopped dead in the middle of the track, Schumacher had hit someone, and Ilott was in the pits getting a new front wing. Safety Car. Ticktum, who was now near the back, took the time during the Safety Car period to give an in-depth analysis of how shit everything had been going for him recently.
After all the crashing and the pit stops, Lundgaard was still in the lead and Ghiotto behind him, but now Mazepin was third and on a new set of soft tyres. Threatening.
The Safety Car came in with just three laps to go, guaranteeing chaos. Mazepin took no time at all to seize his opportunity, overtaking Ghiotto and Lundgaard simultaneously to take the lead of the race. The bad news didn’t end there for Lundgaard, as he was also overtaken by Delétraz, Drugovich and Schumacher, dropping to sixth. Ghiotto fared better against the soft-tyre challengers, but was probably glad the race ended when it did, as he struggled to hold off Delétraz for second place.
Race winner Mazepin looked in shock, Ghiotto looked confused and Delétraz looked happy, as he always does on the podium. The whole thing was summed up perfectly by the Alexes:
Alex J – “Classic F2?”
Alex B – “Classic F2.”
Sprint Race: Ghiotto and Shwartzman in the gravel trap
Excitingly, Markelov was on pole for the Sprint Race, with Vips in second and Lundgaard in third. Before the race, Markelov was all cool in his sunglasses and said he was just going to try to keep everyone behind him, but Lundgaard wasn’t on board with that plan and launched himself into the lead to have another crack at the win he cruelly lost the day before, pulling out a two-second gap in the first lap alone. Delétraz also wanted another taste of the podium and jumped Drugovich, Schumacher and Vips to take third place. At the very back, Ticktum and Shwartzman seemed to have an incident and Ticktum was in the pits having his car fixed, while Shwartzman lived to fight on against Zhou in an aggressive and thrilling battle over 15th place.
While Lundgaard continued to strengthen his lead, Markelov was struggling, as Delétraz passed him and he then got involved battling Vips, with Schumacher also close behind. “I’m not giving up,” Markelov declared when his team told him to hurry up. Alas, it wasn’t long before both Vips and Schumacher passed Markelov, but then Markelov was able to DRS Schumacher to regain the position. Ghiotto, right behind it all, then almost ran into Schumacher, Markelov had a moment allowing Schumacher to get past, and Ghiotto and Markelov banged into each other, allowing Mazepin to pass them both. All of this left Schumacher in fourth, Mazepin fifth, Ghiotto sixth and Markelov heading to the pits with a damaged front wing.
However, Ghiotto apparently hadn’t had enough of tangling with Russians, as teammate Mazepin crashed into him while fighting over fifth, resulting in a trip into the gravel trap for Ghiotto and a premature end to his race. I wonder if Mazepin wanted to take back what he said the previous day, when he stated “me and Luca are teammates, we’re good friends.” Luca certainly had another view, “he can be my teammate, but I don’t have nice words for that… he’s an idiot.” I can’t decide which one of them sounded more terrifying on the radio, Ghiotto and his calm murderous tones, or Mazepin who was pure rage that never really formed into actual words. I’m sure Mazepin was also happy when he was told about his 10-second penalty for the incident, given how much he respects the stewards.
Luckily for Lundgaard and his million-second lead, history did not repeat itself, and only the VSC was deployed, not the full Safety Car. As some used the opportunity to take a pit stop, Alesi had a total disaster when they were unable to get one of his wheels back on and he had to retire from the race. More shaking of the head from Jean.
After the VSC, Ilott, Zhou and Shwartzman were still battling it out with each other, but were no longer at the back, as they had somehow collectively made it up to sixth, except Shwartzman was soon back down to 11th after trying to overtake Armstrong, failing and ending up taking a trip through the gravel trap instead. Tsunoda was also back to his old tricks, having broken his front wing somehow and being forced to pit by the stewards and their black and orange flag.
The closing laps were just a sea of overtakes, everyone three wide and going at each other, except Lundgaard who was 14 seconds ahead. Vips was particularly aggressively fighting Delétraz for second place, but Louis managed to hold him off. It was Delétraz’s second podium of the weekend and something other than 11th place for Vips for a change (although he was pained to mention that he also did not finish in 11th place the day before). Schumacher managed to hold off Zhou (who started 20th!) for fourth place, while Ilott was sixth and Shwartzman ended up in ninth.
It was apparently a bitter-sweet podium for everyone (Lundgaard was still bitter over losing the Feature Race and Vips was apologising to his team because he thought they deserved victory) except Delétraz who is always happy when he’s on the podium, especially when he’s replaced Schumacher as the double-podium king of the weekend. Long reign podium King Louis.
Anyway, never mind all this F2 stuff, because next weekend is Le Mans, and Delétraz is racing in LMP1. He said he is excited about it. As am I. He expects to be tired. As do I. Vips confirmed that it’s better to be racing and tired than having plenty of sleep and being stuck at home. Excellent. Roll on Le Mans!
The championship standings in the gravel trap
After an unexpected weekend of results, Ilott and Shwartzman’s grip on the championship is well and truly buried in the gravel trap, while Schumacher clearly demonstrates that old motorsport mantra about consistency being key to winning championships. He is now atop the leaderboard with 161 points. Ilott is second (153 points) and Lundgaard is back up to third (145 points). Shwartzman’s terrible weekend drops him to fourth (140 points) and Mazepin is trailing behind them in fifth (127 points).