Bruno’s Take: 2020 is one of the tightest seasons we’ve seen

CEO Bruno Michel looks back at an eventful eighth round of the 2020 season and picks out his key topics from Monza.

He looks at the incredibly tight title battle, the names on the podium, and of course, the incredible on track battles.

HIGHS AND LOWS

I have said it before, I will say it again: this 2020 season is probably one of the most fought we’ve ever seen. The drivers cannot afford even the tiniest mistake. It was a weekend of highs and lows for our two Championship leaders, Callum Ilott and Mick Schumacher. The German driver scored ten more points than the Briton, and beautifully recovered from a mistake in qualifying by claiming a maiden Feature Race win.

Ilott was back to top form in qualifying, taking another pole position, but stalled on Saturday during his pit stop. He fought back to another podium finish on Sunday and inherited the Sprint Race win. A post-race penalty on Sunday also allowed Schumacher to take his eighth podium in 2020 and to move up to second in the Championship. I’m interested to see if Ilott will be able to keep the top spot in Mugello.

BACK ON THE PODIUM

I was pleased to see Luca Ghiotto and Christian Lundgaard back on the podium in Monza. The Dane from ART Grand Prix claimed two rostrums last weekend. He moved back up to fifth in the Championship. Consistency has not been his forte this season, but when he puts everything together, he knows how to deliver. As for Ghiotto, everybody knows he is very comfortable at his home track, so I was expecting him to be fighting at the front for Hitech.

NINE POINTS

Only nine points cover the top three drivers in the Championship. Ilott leads Schumacher by six points, whilst Robert Shwartzman lies three points behind his German teammate. We are now past the midway point of the season, but there is still a long way to go. They are still within reach of Yuki Tsunoda, Lundgaard, Nikita Mazepin and Guanyu Zhou. They are all race winners, bar Zhou, but I expect the Chinese driver to claim a maiden victory sooner rather than later.

TAKING ACTION

We saw some reliability issues this past weekend which need to be addressed. We have made it very clear to our partners and suppliers that this has to be fixed. As always, we are being proactive to find the quickest and most efficient solutions. It is not an easy task with the race weekends following one another at rapid pace, but we are using every little bit of time we have to resolve those problems.