Great Britain

F2 arrived in Great Britain, to a track that you know will deliver great racing yet somehow still always manages to produce something unexpected. Also finally a track that John Bennett has actually driven before and I’ve just discovered that someone writes full race reviews for him on his website; I haven’t been so happy since 2019 and Ralph Boschung’s dual-language race blog. In other news, Arvid Lindblad was getting his first FP1 outing in the Red Bull on Friday, which he was apparently excited about, although maybe not as excited as me when I discover an F2 driver actually updates their website regularly…

Great Britain (an ode to Hülkenberg)

Another rainy Silverstone day.
Race start 239. 19th place. 
Expectations low. Chaos high.
Early pit stops, crashes, spins.
The path starts to clear.
Is it possible? It might be possible!
Battling Stroll. Corner after corner. 
Overtake! The podium in sight!
But Hamilton is coming!!
Stress. Stress. Stress. 
Chequered flag! Third place! 
The trophy in his hands!
It’s lego. 

Well done Nico! 

Great Britain

There’s no way Lando will overtake Max at the start. LANDO OVERTOOK MAX AT THE START!!
Max overtakes Lando. There’s no way Lando will keep up with Max. LANDO IS KEEPING UP WITH MAX!!
K-Mag is on fire, literally. Random reshuffle and now Lewis is P3. Max wins but it feels like Lando anyway.

The F2 drivers had all been very busy since the last race a few weeks ago. Jehan Daruvala and Olli Caldwell made their dreams come true, testing for McLaren and Alpine Formula 1 teams, while Jüri Vips made sure he wouldn’t be getting any F1 testing by outing himself as being racist and subsequently getting fired from his Red Bull reserve driver role. Rather than also firing him, Vips’s F2 team Hitech decided he could stay, but probably only because super-sub David Beckmann was already busy, replacing Amaury Cordeel who is serving a one-weekend ban, having racked up all the penalty points by being a bit too rubbish at driving…

F2 is back at Silverstone and it’s been so long since the last round that Théo Pourchaire’s hand, which he broke during the Feature Race in Azerbaijan, has pretty much healed and he was cleared to race. Jüri Vips said the long break had been boring, with just “sim and gym,” whereas Robert Shwartzman said he had been really busy with “sim and gym.” I guess Red Bull’s Milton Keynes sim and gym isn’t as inspiring as Ferrari and Maranello for some reason…

While all the F2 drivers clambered for Racing Point’s attention and an opportunity to jump in COVID-stricken Perez’s F1 seat, Racing Point were like “no thanks, we’ll take Hulkenberg instead,” so they were all stuck driving in F2 as usual. Better luck flexing that Super Licence next time Louis Delétraz…