Some Saturday showers were accompanied by two maiden winners in F2 in front of a record crowd at Silverstone. We also had some enforced driver changes as super-sub, David Beckmann, returned to replace the banned Amaury Cordeel for Van Amersfoort – whilst Ralph Boschung withdrew from the weekend and subsequently vacated his seat owing to the neck/spine injury that has impacted a large portion of the season.
Find out who shone brightest at the home of motor racing, and those who wanted a quick escape from round 7 of the 2022 F2 season:
Top of the class:
Logan Sargeant – Qualifying: 1st | Sprint 7th | Feature: 1st
A bumper Friday for the Williams team not only saw Nicholas Latifi reach Q3 for the first time in his career in F1, but junior Logan Sargeant took F2 pole following on from Zak O’Sullivan (Formula 3) and Jamie Chadwick (W Series). When I say Sargeant took pole, he was utterly dominant in the session and bettered his lap times on four separate occasions in the session. In fact, his third lap time would have been good enough for P1 anyway.
Ultimately, the American was just over a tenth quicker than Mercedes junior Frederik Vesti (ART), which consolidated his pace after topping Free Practice earlier in the day. On Saturday in the wet Sargeant made some progress from 10th to finish P7 in an unusual race. The track was too dry at the end for wet tyres but too wet for slicks, which is complicated because the series does not have an intermediate option available.
P7 was a good return considering the circumstances, but the major prize was on Sunday and Logan looked untouchable for a large portion of the race. He nailed the start and did everything correctly, but suffered with some tyre degradation near the end that brought ART’s Théo Pourchaire into the fight, but the American repelled this threat and pulled clear to take his first victory in the series by nearly two seconds.
The haul of 29 points from Silverstone has moved Logan into P3 in the Championship. He now possesses a handy advantage over his much more experienced teammate in Liam Lawson. But with the momentum firmly behind Logan, it could be a very exciting few months for him as rumours surrounding Latifi’s future continue.
Jack Doohan – Qualifying: 7th | Sprint: 1st | Feature: 9th
Doohan has had the pace over one lap but has largely been unable to transform that into results on Saturday and Sunday. In the notably damp conditions on Saturday, however, it was the Alpine Junior who took the glory.
Starting P4, courtesy of the reverse grid, he began picking off his opponents with ease; Firstly getting past JĂĽri Vips at Village on lap 5, before then replicating the same move on Jehan Daruvala (Prema) a lap later to take P2.
Predictably, another lap later he pulled off the same trick on then-race leader in Charouz’s Enzo Fittipaldi, albeit with the Brazilian running wide which made it a lot easier. The Australian then set about building a gap to the rest of the field and was nearly 6 seconds clear at one point, before DAMS’ Ayumu Iwasa began reeling him in. Doohan held on to take victory by less than a second, but it was an important milestone as he secured his maiden victory in the series.
Sunday was a bit quieter for Jack as he had to recover from a poor start on the alternate tyres which dropped him down to 12th, but he recovered to finish P9 as the soft tyres helped him pick off a few drivers towards the end of the race.
Whilst not being the perfect weekend, it was rewarding to see Jack break that ceiling of getting his first win. I’m sure there will be a few more to come from the Virtuosi driver.
Ayumu Iwasa – Qualifying: 6th | Sprint: 2nd (+FL) | Feature: 12th
Again, another driver who has shown brilliant pace on Friday but never quite converted it over the rest of the weekend. The Red Bull Junior was in scintillating form on Saturday as he followed Doohan through the pack from P5 on the reverse grid, including a beautiful move around the outside of Daruvala at the Vale chicane on lap 6.
Iwasa then had outrageous pace in the final few laps as he was taking nearly 2-seconds a lap out of race leader Doohan, he ultimately ran out of race distance to take the win but a solid haul of 9 points came his way as he scooped the Fastest Lap point.
Unfortunately, Sunday wasn’t one to remember. But this was out of his control as a poor pitstop from his DAMS team coupled with pitting early cemented the Japanese driver’s place outside of the points. Slipping back initially and running out of tyres at the end of the race.
Despite that disappointment, I’m sure Ayumu will be pleased with equalling his best result of the season, a result that he achieved in the Spain Sprint Race. His confidence looks to be on the up as F2 enters the second half of the season.
The struggle bus:
Roy Nissany – Qualifying: 11th | Sprint: 14th | Feature: DNF
Whilst one Williams junior starred at Silverstone, the same could not be said for Roy Nissany. Roy was lucky to escape Silverstone with no injuries and a race ban for causing a serious crash in Sunday’s Feature Race.
Rewind to Friday though, he started the weekend off average by qualifying 11th, albeit nearly half a second behind his rookie teammate Iwasa who was up in P6. He then slid down to 14th on the Sprint Race grid owing to a penalty for a collision at Baku. Nissany made precisely 0 ground in the race as he finished where he started.
The drama really occurred on Sunday, with Nissany all over the road on the first lap. The Israeli ran wide at Copse and swerved across the front of Prema’s Dennis Hauger, in defence of his line into the Vale chicane. Nissany then swerved aggressively and collided with the Norwegian, breaking the latter’s suspension.
The aggressive defence forced a helpless Hauger onto the grass and being unable to steer, he mounted the sausage kerb and jumped into the air, colliding into Nissany’s halo region and coming to a rest in the gravel trap, bringing out a Safety.
The debate about kerbs continues, and I even commented on the need for sausage kerbs after the crash – because we never want to see a car launched at head height. Ultimately, Nissany’s outrageously dangerous driving was the catalyst for the incident. Still, incidents like this happen. So, the debate about sausage kerbs shouldn’t be about where a car should or shouldn’t be on track, but we should seriously consider the need for sausage kerbs in the first place. As we’ve got perfectly fine methods of punishing a car for colouring outside of the lines which doesn’t lead to bigger accidents.
I’m really surprised the Stewards showed some leniency when it comes to the incident between Nissany and Hauger, giving Roy a five-place grid drop for the Sprint Race in Austria. It’s not the first serious incident he’s had in the number of years he’s spent in the series, and I recall Nobaharu Matsushita getting a round ban for a far less serious incident in Baku (2018).
It truly was some of the worst driving I have witnessed in F2 and from someone with far more experience than the majority of the grid, it is alarming that Nissany is still triggering such damaging incidents.
JĂĽri Vips – Qualifying: 8th | Sprint: 12th (demoted from 10th due to penalty) | Feature: 6th
The Estonian mostly appears on this list because of his actions between the Baku round and Silverstone, as the now-former Red Bull test and reserve driver became the latest racing driver to showcase some undesirable behaviour on a live stream.
Jüri has encountered some consequences for the racist and homophobic language used. He may still be a Red Bull junior (despite losing the sponsored overalls and helmet at Silverstone) but he has lost the reserve driver gig. More noteworthy than that, however, is that to the surprise of the series and a large portion of the fanbase he’s been kept on by Hitech GP. The fact that there were several other notable figures of the sport who toed the line that same week is perhaps his saving grace, because there would have been more of an uproar had there not been a shift of focus on the next big scandal.
Personally, I would have liked to see some accountability for both the team and JĂĽri himself, just to see what he was going to do – but I’m just a fan of the series with no impact whatsoever on the running of teams who aim to nurture the future of F1.
Back to racing, Vips had a Saturday to forget as he slid down the order from all the way down from 3rd to 10th in a race with no pitstops. He also picked up a penalty in that race for track limits. So in the end he was classified P12. On Sunday, he did bounce back to a solid P6 on the alternate strategy, but it was a weekend of laying low and seeking anonymity for Vips.
The completion of the Silverstone round marked the halfway point of the season, with a further three rounds in July alone. MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich still maintains a healthy lead of over 40 points, but there is still plenty to play for as glimmers of hope to land an F1 seat begin to appear.
Tune in for round 8 at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, with five drivers belonging to their junior rostrum it would be the ideal place for them to have a solid weekend – find out if they can achieve that on the 9th & 10th of July.
