In terms of the Formula 2 and Formula 3 calendar, mid to late May announces the arrival of a long summer with many F2 and F3 rounds occurring in the ‘Old Continent’.
This means there is a good chance that the season will be decided or at least the narrowest club of championship contenders will be excluded from the rest.
After almost two long months of junior-single seaters drought, ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ returned to iconic Imola situated in the Emilia Romagna region.
Fairly speaking this was the least action-packed weekend of the season so far, excluding that hectic incident in Tamburello that took out 5 cars at the Sprint Race.
A couple of maidens happened this weekend. Argentinian star Franco Colapinto achieved his first F2 victory, his geographical neighbor Paraguayan Joshua Dürksen heroically cruised to P3 in the Feature race and Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto finally got a taste of a podium champagne.
Feature Race was won once again by Isack Hadjar who now poses a threat to championship leader Zane Maloney.
A throwback to F2 Sprint and Feature Race
The Sprint race’s highlight comes after just a couple of hundred meters. A chain reaction was started after the Stanek-Hadjar tangle after which the latter spun and promptly slowed down the grid behind. Enzo Fittipaldi almost went airborne in these split-seconds after he collected a cautious Dürksen. Due to the force of contact, Dürksen also spun and unfortunately clipped Dennis Hauger who was sent into the barrier just behind Roman Stanek.
After the restart, it was all about bringing the car home in a fairly hot Imola condition and the hard-to-overtake nature of this classic track.
F2 came alive in a final couple of laps when Rodin’s Zane Maloney denied Cordeel of his maiden podium and when Colapinto ultimately passed ‘eternal’ race leader Hitech’s Paul Aron for his first F2 victory.
Both clinical passes were successfully done outside of Tamburello’s turn 2. The latter put Argentinian’s triumph under investigation for a potential crossing of a white line exiting the Rivazza corners and heading towards the main straight. However, Colapinto’s pass was deemed legal, and the young Williams driver could start with celebrations.
This victory also marked Colapinto as an Imola expert with young Argentinian talent scoring a win in the 2022 F3 sprint race edition contested under mixed conditions.
Sunday’s race was all about the moment when two opposite strategies would meet together in the final laps of the race.
Bortoleto’s immense one-lap pace was once again compromised with a bad start off the line losing positions not only to Ollie Bearman but also to Hadjar and Dürksen.
Bearman’s horrid F2 campaign continued after the round of the stops when the young Ferrari’s academy driver was too impatient and forced a sudden engine’s RPM to drop to the level of engine stall. From this moment race was lost for the Briton.
This promoted Isack Hadjar to the unofficial first place and was followed by the recovery-driven Bortoleto and sensational AIX driver Joshua Dürksen.
Isack Hadjar controlled a race from the moment the second stint started till the checkered flag wawed to acquire his 2nd in a row F2 feature race win.
Frenchmen held off Bortoleto who came under the DRS range in the last two laps of the race to insert himself into early title contention.
Hadjar was helped by a first faulty race of the season for Zane Maloney who was stuck for a good 20 laps behind Roman Stanek before finally dispatching Trident’s driver with 4 laps to go.
A visible frustration from the championship leader was best pictured with his team radio message.
If we don’t pass him, we are [redacted]
Zane Maloney whilst being stuck behind Roman Stanek on lap 21 out of 35
No points finish resulted in a 25-point loss to a surging Hadjar.
F2’s Feature Race was also marked by a double failure of two drivers from the reverse strategy. Amaury Cordeel and Pepe Marti both lost their rear left tires which luckily did not harm anyone in the pit lane.
The outcome was even worse for the Belgian driver for Hitech’s outfit as Belgian was projected to fight for the maiden podium.
Inconsistent stewarding for the F2 and F3 levels
Early seasons of F2 and F3 seasons are overshadowed by numerous driver displacements following sessions, be it races or qualifying.
The qualifying session of F2 was revamped twice with notably both Prema’s losing 2nd and 4th place for crossing white lines at the exit of a certain Imola’s corners. Prema’s return to the 1st and 2nd row of the grid was faced with various controversies due to other drivers being punished for their off-track excursions.
The biggest victim of these stewarding decisions was Victor Martins who plummeted to dead last place for both F2 Sprint and Main race.
F3 race is another example of steward’s inconsistency. Campos’ Oliver Goethe was stripped of a Sprint race win due to an ‘illegal post-Virtual Safety Car’ overtake on VAR’s Noel Leon.
The bizarre outcome was stewards punishing Leon with a time penalty and reinstating Goethe in the P1.
It is needed to improve the quality of junior category stewarding which would in the process react positively to on-track action.
Results mean nothing or do they?
Prema’s season has been turned upside down after the legendary feeder series team was classified to nail the new regulations and bring their two ‘wunderkinds’ into Formula 1.
Despite a winless and podium-less season after these 4 rounds, it seems as if both Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman are destined to become a new class of F1 rookies for the 2025 season.
Rumors of Antonelli’s in-season switch to Williams and Bearman’s jump into the Haas team after outpacing Hülkenberg in Imola’s FP1 are boiling slowly as summer’s transfer news is slowly appearing around the corner.
Prema’s duo currently sits in 6th and underperforming 20th place in the standings.
Even though both drivers are worthy of an F1 seat it would be really good for the sake of competition that Prema starts to perform to their usual levels.
What is going on in ART?
Another pre-season favorite is heavily underperforming after 4 full rounds.
The strong lineup of 2022 F3 champion Victor Martins and last year’s runner-up Zak O’Sullivan currently sit in 19th and 15th place respectively.
The reigning team champions are just ahead of AIX racing in miserable 9th place in the standings.
To make things worse, AIX has just scored its first podium and is slowly crawling towards the mid-pack of the grid as the most pleasant surprise (along Campos) in the early summer mode of the F2 campaign.
It seems that the problem is perennial and it lies in the fundamental issue of not understanding a new car.
The team’s principal Sebastian Phillipe has admitted that ‘some teams have understood car better than others and there are still 10 races to go’
Optimism for the future and realism with the current situation prevails over ART’s garage. Input that their talented lineup can bring in the form of feedback and on-track results is a good start to turning the season in their favor.
The next round of Formula 2 moves to the streets of Monaco in just less than one week.
Formula 2 Driver’s standings after 8/28 races
| 1. Zane Maloney | Rodin Motorsport | 68 |
| 2. Paul Aron | Hitech Pulse-Eight | 63 |
| 3. Isack Hadjar | Campos Racing | 59 |
| 4. Dennis Hauger | MP Motorsport | 41 |
| 5. Gabriel Bortoleto | Invicta Racing | 38 |
| 6. Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Prema Racing | 36 |
| 7. Franco Colapinto | MP Motorsport | 34 |
| 8. Kush Maini | Invicta Racing | 34 |
| 9. Enzo Fittipaldi | VAR | 32 |
| 10. Jak Crawford | DAMS Lucas Oil | 32 |