Whilst the F1 action was rather controversial, Formula 2 plodded along with a rather docile weekend for its standards. It was a strong showing for the Championship leaders – so expect a few familiar names in the report cards from round 4 of the 2021 season.
Top of the class:
Oscar Piastri – Qualifying: 1st | Sprint 1: 6th (+FL) | Sprint 2: 4th (+FL) | Feature: 3rd
The 2020 F3 Champion is making his second appearance of the season in this list and it’s easy to see why. A dominant pole, progress in both Sprint Races with the fastest lap in both, followed by a fifth podium of the season in the Feature Race means that Piastri now leads the Driver’s Championship.
The Prema driver took his first pole by nearly two tenths and made up four places in the reverse-grid SR1 after starting 10th. In the rather processional SR2, he still finished higher than he started.
Whilst he ceded the lead at Abbey to fast starting UNI-Virtuosi driver Guanyu Zhou, Piastri still had decent pace, though he had to fight to keep hold of P3 from MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor, as he lost P2 to Dan Ticktum after the pitstops.
It’s remarkable to think that Oscar is an F2 rookie and is outperforming teammate Robert Schwartzman, who I tipped to be Champion this year. The Russian started his rookie F2 campaign as F3 Champion from the year before (like Piastri) and start strongly before fading at the end of the season. Hopefully for Oscar, he won’t follow the same track record.
With Piastri and fellow Alpine junior Zhou the top two in the Championship, and them now starting to pull away from the rest of the pack, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for finding them seats next year.
Richard Verschoor – Qualifying: 3rd | Sprint 1: 10th | Sprint 2: 1st | Feature: 4th
This was a really strong weekend for the MP Motorsport driver, his best qualifying followed by a dominant win from pole in SR2 and narrowly missing out on a podium in the Feature Race. Considering he’s a rookie driving for a decent midfield team, Verschoor can be proud of his Silverstone ventures.
His weekend was largely shaped around the decision to pit under the Safety Car in SR1 and the fact that Charouz’s Guilherme Samaia got beached in the gravel on the exit of Luffields. As Guilherme slid down out of the top 10, the fresh tyre advantage ensured that Richard could sneak into 10th and therefore take advantage of reverse pole for SR2.
He was the only driver across F1 and F2 to lead the field from P1 when he bossed the start of SR2 and never looked back from there, taking his maiden victory by just over two seconds. In the Feature Race the Dutchman hounded Piastri for P3, but he couldn’t quite make the move stick despite his valiant efforts in the final laps.
Verschoor now sits 10th in the standings after his strong weekend, not bad for a driver who is grafting every round to ensure he has a drive as MP only have him on a round-by-round contract. If this performance isn’t enough to at least see out the season I will be furious.
Dan Ticktum – Qualifying: 4th | Sprint 1: 8th | Sprint 2: 3rd | Feature: 2nd
He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but my respect for Dan has been growing significantly in 2021. Another double podium in front of home fans was another thoroughly deserved result for Dan.
A strong qualifying left Dan starting 7th for SR1, and whilst he lost a position in that race, he had a relatively stress-free run to P3 in SR2. In the Feature Race, a decent start saw Dan running third, and he was able to get past poleman Piastri during the second stint to score his fifth podium in 12 races.
Moving to Carlin has been a masterstroke for the Williams junior and his results show it. He’s certainly matured, and whilst there are some radio outbursts, I appreciate that Ticktum wears his heart on his sleeve. The fact that they toned down compared to last year aids him too, showing how he’s growing and developing.
I sincerely hope Williams gives him a test or Free Practice run soon because he does deserve a chance. Considering the rumours around George Russell moving to Mercedes, Dan could find himself in a position to have a Super Licence, especially as he currently sits P4 in the standings and isn’t far off Piastri and Zhou.
The struggle bus:
Formula 2’s new format
Like I gave the F1 sprint qualifying trial a chance this weekend, I wanted to give F2’s new format a few rounds to make my mind up on whether I supported it or not, especially because I was quite critical of it before the season started.
After four rounds I’ve decided I hate the new format, I find it really difficult to keep on top of the session timings, the gaps between the races are too long, and I don’t think it will make too much difference to the spiralling costs in junior formulas, which was the prime reason to swap from 12 rounds of two races to eight rounds of 3.
When you’ve got winners on race-by-race contracts, fringe points finishers getting F1 Free Practice outings due to their sponsorship, and a six-week gap until the next round at Monza – something is drastically wrong with the series’ structure.
Unfortunately, I can’t see things getting better unless the series condenses the calendar – however, this would likely involve stand-alone events that wouldn’t get anywhere near as much exposure as when the series supports the F1 races.
Roy Nissany – Qualifying: 8th | Sprint 1: DNF | Sprint 2: 12th | Feature: 16th
The Williams junior looked to be bouncing back from a pretty horrific round in Baku last time out after qualifying a strong 8th. However, his weekend sound unravelled from there.
The reverse-grid SR1 lasted to The Loop before the Israeli driver clumsily ran into the back of ART’s Christian Lundgaard, damaging the front of his DAMS and retiring on the spot. His recovery drive from the back of the grid to P12 in SR2 was respectable, but teammate Marcus Armstrong scored a P2, showing where Nissany should have been fighting.
Roy would slip out of the points early on in the Feature Race and would then proceed to ruin his day by spinning on the exit of Becketts whilst chasing Armstrong and telling his team over the radio that he was ready to make a move on his teammate. In the end, he came home a lowly P16.
At this point, Nissany will never make F1 based on these performances, so why Williams are giving him so much running in their car when another junior (Dan Ticktum) is actively fighting for the Championship I will never know.
The ART #2 seat curse
Jack Aitken, Nikita Mazepin and Marcus Armstrong all have one thing in common, they have suffered from the ART #2 seat curse. Whilst their teammates were winning races and even Championships, they’ve struggled with reliability, team mistakes or just a lack of overall pace. In spite of already being with the team for a season, it feels as though Christian Lundgaard is destined to join this unfortunate group in 2021.
He’s already lost podiums through rare engine failures, been crashed out of a few races, and now the team can’t even fit tyres on his car properly with his rear left tyre falling off after a pitstop. This happened during the Feature Race when he was running in the top 6. Just to top it off, he was given a 10-second penalty by the stewards for an unsafe release.
That F1 dream seems to be slipping further and further away for the Alpine junior. To make matters worse, fellow Alpine juniors Piastri and Zhou are leading the Championship, so the young Dane risks being simply forgotten. I just want to give him a hug and hope the team can turn things around in the second half of the season.
F2 has another lengthy break before kicking off the second half of the season at Monza in the second week of September. Can anyone topple Piastri and Zhou or are the pair going to break free from the rest of the pack? Be sure to tune into the action!
