Bruno’s Take - Round 8

Seven in Twelve

Last week at the Red Bull Ring, we saw two new names added to the list of this season’s winners: On Saturday, it was Nobuharu Matsushita who claimed victory in the Feature Race. The Carlin driver mastered tyre management to cross the line first, after what has been a challenging season so far for the Japanese. Then on Sunday, Sérgio Sette Câmara atoned for a mistake he made in the Feature Race, where he made small contact with teammate Nicholas Latifi. He finished third on track but was given a 5s time penalty for that incident. In the Sprint Race, he drove flawlessly to a first win in 2019. Seven drivers have now claimed victory in the past twelve races. As always, Formula 2 delivers unpredictable results, making for an exciting championship.

Mighty Mick

Expectations have been really high since it was confirmed that Mick Schumacher would join our field this season. There is a lot of media and fans interest surrounding the German driver who so far is yet to consistently score points. On Sunday, his performance was riveting: starting from P18 in the Sprint Race he carved his way to fourth place. A late safety car period meant the gap to third place was reduced to naught and Schumacher put huge pressure on the more experienced Nyck De Vries in pursuit of a maiden F2 podium. De Vries eventually held on to the position at the flag, but surely Schumacher’s performance will give him an extra boost for the rest of the season.

On Pirelli Tyres

Once again, both F2 races at the Red Bull Ring have been fantastic and this was also in part due to tyre degradation. I am very pleased with the tyres that Pirelli provide us with: they are an essential part to making a great show. This is exactly what we want: it allows the teams to work on finding the perfect set-up and for our young drivers to learn how to manage the tyres, which is key in their preparation for the next step: Formula 1.