Bruno’s Take: Why strategy is proving key this year

CEO Bruno Michel looks back at the fourth round of the season and picks out his key topics from Silverstone. He discusses the intensifying title fight, congratulates Formula 2’s newest race winners, and looks at why strategy was so important again in Round 4.

TWO MORE WINNERS

This season has already proven to be extremely competitive on the drivers’ front, but also from the teams’ perspective. Six of them have claimed victory so far, out of eight races. We’ve not seen this in a while in F2. I am pleased to see newcomers Hitech Grand Prix confirm their top form with Nikita Mazepin’s Feature Race win. They have won both F2 and F3 races on Saturday which is quite the accomplishment! I am also pleased to see our reigning champions DAMS back on top with Dan Ticktum’s sprint race victory.

THREE DISTINCTIVE GROUPS

Each round brings its share of surprises. PREMA Racing have looked very strong since the start of the season, but last week, they were unable to score more than 2 points in total. UNI-Virtuosi on the other hand were back to their blazing race pace and were thus able to overtake the Italian team in the Standings by 2 points.

ART Grand Prix in third have also closed the gap. Looking at the Teams’ Championship, there are currently three groups: the three aforementioned squads have slightly pulled away from the second group made of Hitech, DAMS, Carlin, MP Motorsport and Charouz. In the final group, Campos, HWA and Trident have endured a more delicate start to their campaign. There is still time to turn things around and I’m sure they are capable of it.

TITLE FIGHT

As I said before, this season has been quite unpredictable so far, and although some drivers look stronger than others at the moment, it does not mean that you can tell in advance who will perform well at a given event. Case in point: qualifying. We’ve had four different polemen in as many sessions! Two of them were even rookies (Tsunoda and Drugovich).

Shwartzman took the lead of the Drivers’ Championship after Round 2, but last week, the Russian had a difficult weekend, scoring zero points. Meanwhile, Ilott had amazing race pace around the Silverstone track. However, the Briton made costly mistakes which resulted in him being unable to capitalise on his rival’s difficulties. Behind the duo, drivers such as Lundgaard, Mazepin, Ticktum, Zhou and Delétraz have scored big points to close the gap. It’s safe to say that the title fight has intensified.

KEY STRATEGIES

At an unusually dry Silverstone circuit, the Pirelli tyres have yet again played a key role and have once more pushed the teams and the drivers to take daring strategies. Zhou on Saturday and Lundgaard on Sunday made a bold late call that saw them have a fantastic end to the race, and it produced a gripping finish. This makes our racing even more exciting.

WELCOME MAX

I would like to conclude this week’s column by congratulating Artem Markelov and his wife on the birth of their son, Max. From everyone at F2, we wish their family the best!