Eight weeks since Formula 2 last raced, the paddock returned to Monaco after an enforced hiatus in 2020. The series also welcomed back Jack Aitken, who replaced HWA’s Matteo Nannini for Monaco and Baku as the Italian has elected to focus on his Formula 3 programme with the same team.
It was a strange weekend in F2, with the event wrapping up on the Saturday. Nonetheless, there was a surprising amount of action up and down the grid and even a sprinkle of rain on the Friday morning!
Find out who topped the class and the struggle bus riders from round 2 of the 2021 Season in Monaco:
Top of the class:
Théo Pourchaire – Qualifying: 1st | Sprint 1: 7th | Sprint 2: 4th | Feature: 1st
Théo Pourchaire became the youngest winner in F2 at just 17 years old in Saturday’s Feature Race. This was all possible because Théo took a dominant pole position in Thursday’s session on his first outing around the streets of Monaco in a race car. Worth mentioning is that this weekend was only his fourth in the series, having seen out the remainder of 2020 with HWA.
His time of 1:20.985 in Group A was over four-tenths clear of the next best time (Which was set by Robert Schwartzman in Group B.) Théo was also nearly a second faster than his teammate Christian Lundgaard. Not bad for a driver that can’t legally drive a road car in Monaco.
With the unique F2 format, Pourchaire’s aim was to maximise results in the reverse grid Sprint Race 1, which he did by finishing 7th after starting 10th. In SR2, he would finish 5th after starting 4th, but was elevated after Hitech’s Liam Lawson was disqualified for an illegal throttle map.
Off the back of strong results in Sprint Races, Théo put in a thoroughly mature and dominant drive to breeze to victory, leading the majority of the race. His strong weekend in Monaco means that the Frenchman jumps 8 places and ends up fourth in the Driver’s Standings.
This weekend certainly outlines Pourchaire’s credentials and will only solidify his place in the Sauber junior set-up.
Ralph Boschung – Qualifying: 6th | Sprint 1: 4th | Sprint: 5th | Feature: 6th
Without a doubt, this was the Swiss drivers strongest performance in Formula 2. His previous best result in the series was 7th, and he beat that in all three races at Monaco. His experience really made the difference this weekend, actually setting the fourth-fastest time in qualifying, but due to the Group Format F2 utilises for Monaco he would ultimately be classified 6th.
His three races were actually very quiet, starting 5th in SR1 he would later be elevated to 4th as ART’s Christian Lundgaard retired with an oil leak. SR2 he would start 7th and finish 6th in a wet/dry race. Liam Lawson’s disqualification from the race win saw Boschung rise up to 5th. In the Feature Race, Boschung would finish where he started.
It was a really impressive weekend for Ralph and his points tally from Monaco surpasses that of his last 23 F2 weekends combined, dating back to Silverstone 2017. They were also valuable points for Campos, who vault up to 8th in the Team’s Standings as a result of Ralph’s consistent performances in the Principality.
Oscar Piastri – Qualifying: 3rd | Sprint 1: 8th | Sprint 2: 2nd | Feature: 2nd
Another solid weekend for the 2020 F3 Champion, as he’s starting to show teammate Robert Schwartzman up at present. The Australian set the third-fastest time in qualifying and took home an armful of points from the weekend to jump up to 2nd in the Driver’s Standings.
SR1 was unremarkable, but compared to Schwartzman, Piastri at least kept it out of the walls and secured a decent P8 finish. During SR2 Piastri vaulted from P3 to take the lead (albeit advantaged by DAMS driver Marcus Armstrong having a driveshaft failure that prevented him from starting the reverse-grid race from pole). Though he slipped back to third at the end of the race, he was promoted to 2nd after Lawson’s issue.
Piastri would then return to the rostrum with another P2 in the Feature Race. He pretty much spent the race in third and, after robustly defending from Carlin’s Dan Ticktum at Rascasse, Piastri would scoop up second when his Prema teammate suffered a slow pitstop.
After that disappointing DNF in the Bahrain Feature Race, Piastri bounced back with a consistent weekend performance in Monaco and is setting up an early title fight whilst Schwartzman still has his early-season fumbles.
The struggle bus:
Gianluca Petecof – Qualifying: 19th | Sprint 1: DNF | Sprint 2: DNF | Feature: 16th
Captaining the F2 struggle bus out of Monaco is Campos’ Gianluca Petecof. The Brazilian had a bit of a horror show this weekend, crashing out of two races and causing an accident in the other one. He shouldn’t feel disheartened though, as it was only Gianluca’s second race weekend in F2, though one he will aim to forget in a hurry.
His debut in Monaco started badly when he suffered a spectacular engine failure in Free Practice that left smoke covering most of the track. SR1 saw the Campos driver have a carbon copy accident of that which ruined Charles Leclerc’s weekend, clipping the inside barrier of the Swimming Pool chicane, vaulting over the kerb and into the guardrail on lap 24. SR2 was over at Sainte Devote on lap one, after colliding with Trident’s Marino Sato, the Brazilian found the barriers with broken front-right suspension.
Unfortunately, the Feature Race wasn’t much better, although he did at least see the chequered flag. Petecof forced Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala into the barrier on the entry to the Nouvelle Chicane on lap 19, getting a 10-second penalty in the process, whilst Daruvala retired on the spot with suspension damage. He ultimately came home ahead of the HWAs in 16th place.
The scheduling
Considering that Monaco has the unique position of starting the action on a Thursday, it was a shame to see the F2 action all wrap up on a Saturday. I’m not saying this just as a fan that also works on a weekend, but the series is such an imperative stepping stone to F1 that it would have been more logical to have the Feature Race on Sunday morning.
Instead, the action was mainly concentrated on Saturday, with Sprint Race 2 taking place at 7:50 am (UK time), which is frustratingly early for a European round, whilst the Feature Race occurred after F1 qualifying.
Of course, there were a number of other support rounds in Monaco, like the Porsche Carrera Cup and Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, but especially with the current imperative that F1 drivers must drive in this series to make the step up, the scheduling rather threw F2 out of the spotlight.
Robert Schwartzman – Qualifying: 2nd | Sprint 1: DNF | Sprint 2: 10th (+FL) | Feature: 4th
I’m probably off Robert’s Christmas Card list for including him on the struggle bus for a second consecutive weekend, but he ruined two races with a rather rookie error in Sprint Race 1.
Starting in 9th due to his qualifying performance, Robert’s race was ended when he slid into the barriers at Massenet on lap 1 and breaking his front wing. He would retire on lap 3 as the car was undrivable.
I do commend him for the rest of the weekend, salvaging the fastest lap points in SR2 by inheriting 10th after starting 22nd. He was also blameless for the pit stop that cost him P2 in the Feature, but whilst Piastri maximised his results, Schwartzman compromised the first two races with that mistake at Massenet.
He now lies 38 points behind Championship leader Zhou which isn’t a particularly large margin in F2, but there are only 6 more weekends and Schwartzman is already playing catch-up.
Unlike the gap between round 1 and 2, we only have to wait two weeks until Baku. The circuit has a bit of a reputation to throw up chaotic races for F2, so I’d highly recommend tuning in on the weekend of the 5th & 6th June.
