A weekend in the Styrian mountains, where track limits warnings and penalties were being handed out quicker than even Oprah Winfrey could keep up with. Which really is the top story of the Formula 2 round in Austria. There were also some more driver changes to content with as Amaury Cordeel returned from his round ban at VAR whilst Robert Merhi, the 31 year-old who raced 10 times for Manor/Marussia in 2015, stood in at Campos for the injured Ralph Boschung.
In a chaotic round where practically every driver fell foul of the strict rules, find out who somehow managed to shine outside of the Stewards’ Room.
Top of the class:
Logan Sargeant – Qualifying: 3rd | Sprint: 7th | Feature: 1st (promoted from 4th due to penalties)
Feels like déjà vu for Logan as he repeated his Saturday & Sunday results from Silverstone in Austria, albeit without the incredible pace he showed last time around.
His 1:14.289 in qualifying was nearly two tenths slower than poleman Frederik Vesti, and in Saturday’s Sprint race he made up just the 1 place to take P7.
The glory came on Sunday in somewhat fortunate circumstances. Carlin gambled on starting with the wet tyres after overnight showers, which was the wrong move as Sargeant plummeted down the order in the early stages, despite a wonderful overtake around the outside of Virtuosi’s Jack Doohan around the outside of turn 9 on lap 1.
Despite this setback, Logan rebuilt his race with some bold overtaking moves. Most notably on his teammate Liam Lawson at turn 3, to cross the line P4. He was already promoted to the podium as 3rd place finisher Robert Merhi was penalised for track limits.
Then after the champagnes was popped on the podium, the Williams junior was greeted with the news that he would be a back-to-back Feature Race winner. Trident’s Richard Verschoor, who initially took the win, was disqualified for failing to provide a sufficient fuel sample after stopping on the exit of turn 2 on the cool down lap. Then second-place Jehan Daruvala (Prema) was hit with a 20-second post-race penalty for the team drying his grid box before the start of the race. As a result of this good fortune, mixed with his recovery, Sargeant now moves up to P3 in the Championship.
With the two title protagonists both failing to score, Logan closes to 40 points behind Championship leader Felipe Drugovich (MP Motorsport), and now a point ahead of Théo Pourchaire (ART). Let’s not forget this is Logan’s rookie season and he is just building that momentum for the second half of this season.
Enzo Fittipaldi – Qualifying: 12th | Sprint: 8th (promoted from 9th due to penalty) | Feature: 2nd (promoted from 5th due to penalties)
He may be carrying a famous name in motorsport, and had brother Pietro cheering in support from the pitwall, but Enzo is climatising well in his first full time season in F2, and he again had a solid weekend in Austria where he made progress in both races. Due to penalties, he also came away with his third podium of the season.
Enzo qualified down in 12th which doesn’t benefit from the reverse grid, despite this he picked off three drivers in front to take the chequered flag in P9, which was upgraded to P8 and a Championship point following a penalty for ART’s Frederik Vesti.
In Sunday’s Feature Race, the Charouz driver gambled on dry tyres to start the race, tiptoeing around the first couple of laps with sector 2 in particular being very damp. He was up to 5th by lap 7, although could have been third had he not been forced wide by the struggling Jüri Vips at turn 6.
Even when he pitted on lap 15, Fittipaldi only dropped back to 7th, and he was able to improve to 5th by the chequered flag, with sanctions for three drivers in front of him the Brazilian equalled his best finish of the season, as he vaults up to an impressive P5 in the Championship.
It would require a Herculean effort for Enzo to challenge for the title as he sits 79 points off top, but he would qualify for Super Licence with a P4 finish in the driver’s standings overall, and he’s only five points behind Daruvala who occupies that spot.
Roberto Merhi – Qualifying: 21st | Sprint: DNF | Feature: 3rd (demoted from 2nd due to penalty)
I will add a caveat to this in that under normal circumstance, a driver that was penalised wouldn’t make it in this list, but considering the weekend circumstances there is only one place for Robert Merhi.
Roberto is a particularly experienced driver; a driver with F1 starts to his name and who has last competed in Formula 2 in 2019, but he was only announced two days prior to the Austria round and had never driven the new car before.
Add into the mix stringent track limits, multiple car failures (one in qualifying and one on the penultimate lap of the Sprint Race) and the wet start on Sunday, and it’s safe to say that his weekend turned out to be a very complicated affair. To come out of the weekend with a podium is a fabulous achievement for the super sub. That he did it from 21st on the grid makes that result even more worthwhile as he hit the front with a gamble on starting with slick tyres.
It’s wild to think that had Merhi not got a penalty for track limits on Sunday, he would have actually won the race owing to some drivers in front also being penalised. The Campos stand in initially dropped from P2 to P5 in the classification but with Verschoor and Daruvala having their transgression, he returned to an F2 podium for the first time since the 2018 Abu Dhabi Sprint Race.
The struggle bus:
Frederik Vesti – Qualifying: 1st | Sprint: 12th (demoted from 9th due to penalty) | Feature: 14th (demoted from 8th due to penalties)
Taking command of the struggle bus this week is Frederik Vesti. He showed some superb pace in qualifying to take his maiden pole position. But in that session, he already had times deleted for track limits, which should have been a warning to the Dane.
Yet in both Sprint and Feature Races Frederik picked up penalties for the same offence, 5 seconds in the Sprint which dropped him from P9 to P12, and 15 seconds plus a further 5 for overtaking off the track, to drop him from 8th to 12th after all other penalties were applied.
It’s easy for an armchair fan like me to say but I’d simply…not break track limits after doing so in qualifying. Bold I know, because so many drivers fell foul in F2 which probably hints at a larger problem with policing the rule with these cars that tend to oversteer.
Nevertheless, a few drivers evaded the wrath of the stewards and with a pole position start he really should have converted that to a better haul than he came out of Austria with.
Liam Lawson – Qualifying: 14th | Sprint: DNF | Feature: 10th (demoted from 6th due to penalties)
It seems like the Kiwi has been on a season ticket to struggletown after such a dominating start to the season. He took three consecutive podiums to be the early Championship leader, but Austria was another round to forget. Being a Red Bull junior will make that even more painful.
Lawson had his quickest lap deleted from qualifying due to track limits, which dropped him from around P6 to P14, which meant that getting results was going to be difficult anyway.
Matters weren’t helped when he stalled on the formation lap of the Sprint race and retired 11 laps in. Nonetheless Sunday had the opportunity to make amends to reignite a title challenge as title favourite faltered, unfortunately so did Liam.
The Carlin driver crossed the line 6th but was demoted to 10th after getting 15 seconds worth of track limit penalties, a solitary point from round 8 means his hopes are all but over as he now finds himself down in 10th, 94 points away from leader Drugovich. To compound matters, Liam is now being outshone by teammate Sargeant.
Amaury Cordeel – Qualifying: 7th | Sprint: 18th (Demoted from 17th due to penalties) | Feature: 18th (promoted from 19th due to penalties)
A driver coming back from race ban would surely want a quiet weekend and not commit offences that put you under the Steward’s microscope… Well, the Belgian clearly didn’t get the memo as he committed yet more penalty-worthy offences this weekend.
Already carrying a three-place grid drop into the Sprint race for causing a collision in Baku, Cordeel botched his start and slid down to 14th by the end of the opening lap. He never really recovered as he would go on to receive penalties for track limits and overtaking under double-yellow flags which will carry some more points for his licence.
In the tricky damp conditions of Sunday, Amaury again slid backwards from his P17 spot and would take the chequered flag in P19 before a disqualification for Verschoor elevated him a lace, not that it is much of a consolation because the Van Amersfoort Racing driver was well outside of the points – lapped to be precise.
Yes, I will mention the qualifying because there are some silver linings to take, Amaury did have really strong pace in the Friday session which saw him land inside the top 10 for the first time in his F2 career, hopefully more of that and no repeating the rest of the weekend will see and upward trajectory in the results.
I for one would love to be a fly on the wall for the driver briefing for the next round, as you can see form this article track limits will be a phrase that will haunt some drivers. Next up for the paddock is Paul Ricard, a track famous for its extensive paved runoffs so policing that will be fun for the Stewards.
At least there’s a week break for tempers to cool, check back in on the weekend of 23rd/24th July for round 9 of the 2022 season. Â