FIA F2 - Rolex Grosser Preis von Österreich: Event Analysis
Britain’s Callum Ilott leads the 2020 FIA Formula 2 Championship after a strong performance saw him take the Feature Race win, whilst rookie Felipe Drugovich stunned the paddock with a Sprint Race victory.
Qualifying:
Heading into the season, many had already labelled UNI-Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou as the main title favourite, especially as the Chinese man is hotly tipped for the 2021 Renault F1 seat. And in qualifying Zhou only further proved he has what it takes to take the title with a dominant pole for the Feature Race, a stunning 0.464s ahead of MP Motorsport’s rookie Felipe Drugovich, who was only 4 thousands of a second ahead of Zhou’s teammate Callum Ilott.
Surprises from qualifying were 2019 title protagonist Jack Aitken down in 14th place for Campos Racing, but the big shocks were expected front runners Artem Markelov and Nobuharu Matsushita down in P20 and P21 respectively. It was a particular surprise for Matsushita, as his rookie teammate Drugovich was on the front row.
Feature Race:
From P3, Ilott had an incredible start in the Virtuosi car, jumping both front-row men into the first corner, however teammate Zhou wasn’t having any of it, as for the entire first lap the Virtuosi teammates battled side-by-side, with Zhou winning out at the end of Lap 1.
Behind them at Turn 3 on Lap 1, the 2 Red Bull Junior Team by Carlin drivers came together, with Japanese rookie Yuki Tsunoda rear-ending fellow rookie Jehan Daruvala, causing the Indian to spin round. Tsunoda was given a 5s time penalty as a result.
While the UNI-Virtuosis stormed away at the front of the field, reigning FIA F3 champion Robert Shwartzman was making his way up into 3rd, passing Drugovich into Turn 3 on Lap 8.
On Lap 18, Zhou pitted from the lead of the race, falling back to 6th place. The next lap, Ilott followed suit, with an impressive in-lap and pitstop seeing him jump his teammate into the lead. But it wasn’t long before Zhou was in a position to attack, and by Lap 20 he dived down the inside of his teammate into Turn 3, before aggressively overtaking Mick Schumacher one lap later.
However, the dream start to the season for Virtuosi was not to be, as on Lap 26, Zhou slowed from the lead of the race with a reliability issue. He made it back to the pits and was able to return to the race, but was a long way behind the pack. One lap later, Markelov also slowed with an issue, but had to stop on track and a Safety Car was deployed as a result.
Schumacher was now up into 2nd position after gaining during the pitstop phase, however after the Safety Car Restart, he went of the road at Turn 7, narrowly avoiding a heavy impact with the barriers.
For the rest of the race however, Callum Ilott remained unchallenged to take is maiden Formula 2 victory, with Ferrari Driver Academy drivers locking out the podium, with podiums for both Marcus Armstrong for ART Grand Prix and Schwartzman for Prema Racing in their debut F2 race.
Only 3 DNF’s were recorded, for HWA’s Markelov, and DAMS’ Sean Gelael and Trident's Marino Sato retiring early on in the race. Luca Ghiotto never made the race start. The full results can be seen below:
Sprint Race:
After finishing P8 in the Feature Race, Drugovich would start the Sprint Race from pole with Charouz’s Louis Deletraz alongside. Off the start, Drugovich fended off Deletraz's attack into Turn 1, before building a healthy lead on the first lap due to Dan Ticktum trying to overtake Deletraz into Turn 3. Armstrong took advantage of the battle to make a double overtake into Turn 3 on both Ticktum and Giuliano Alesi, with Shwartzman momentarily making it a scary 4 wide.
However it only took until Lap 2 for the Safety Car to be deployed, with Alesi’s car dramatically combusting. After the restart, Armstrong and Deletraz battled over P2, with Deletraz managing to fend of the Kiwi’s attack.
Luca Ghiotto’s dreadful weekend for debutant team Hitech GP came to an end on Lap 8 at Turn 4, after being punted by Carlin’s Daruvala. Zhou narrowly avoided being caught up in the incident but had to take evasive action by taking to the gravel, further ruining his weekend.
Williams Development Driver Roy Nissany was being punchy on his return to Formula 2, diving down the inside of fellow Williams Development Driver Jack Aitken into Turn 4. After Aitken retook the position, Nissany made further attempts to divebomb the Anglo-Korean driver into both Turn 6 and Turn 7, but to no prevail.
Marcus Armstrong’s strong debut weekend in F2 came to an end prematurely on Lap 14, when he slowed from a podium position out of Turn 1, retiring from the race.
However fellow rookie Felipe Drugovich had no such bad luck – the Brazilian dominated the Sprint Race at Austria, ahead of Deletraz, and Ticktum who took his maiden F2 podium.
The battles continued further down the field until the very end though, with Jack Aitken making a clever move work on fellow Brit Ilott to finish in the final points paying position in P8.
The full results can be seen below:
As a result, Callum Ilott leads the championship ahead of 4 rookies - Shwartzman, Drugovich, Ticktum and Armstrong. The full Drivers' and Teams' Standings can be seen below:
FIA Formula 2 returns on July 11th/12th for the Pirelli Grosser Preis der Steiermark at the Red Bull Ring.
