Guest column – Juan Manuel Correa

Juan Manuel Correa was watching the opening round of FIA Formula 2 racing closely from his home in Miami, America. He may not have been able to join his friends and rivals out on track, as he continues his recovery from the crash at Spa-Francorchamps, but has penned a guest column to discuss all of the excitement from Round 1.

He gives his thoughts on an impressive batch of rookie drivers, looks ahead to Round 2, and details how his rehabilitation is going.

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

I was excited that racing was back on this weekend because I think that we all missed it a lot. I would have loved to have been there and been racing, so it was a bit hard in that sense, but it was amazing to watch the races.

My recovery is going well, it is actually going better than expected. I saw a doctor last week and I am going to have some surgery this month, most likely, which is a positive thing. The more surgery that I have, the more advanced and the faster I can advance, so it is looking good.

There is still a lot of work to be done, and a lot of rehab to do, but overall, I am in a good place and I am gaining a lot of mobility in the leg. I am standing, putting weight on it, and I am nearly walking, but I still need to work on it. Overall, it is going well.

THOUGHTS FROM ROUND 1

It was very interesting, and I thought that there was some really good racing. It had been a while since I had seen an F2 race from the outside, because the races I missed last year, I didn’t even get to see them because I was in the hospital for most of them, and honestly, I didn’t feel like watching them for obvious reasons.

It was nice to see some good racing again and it was very entertaining as always, with some very close racing. I was surprised at how close the Qualy was as well and it was cool to see some new names up there. I think it is going to be a cool year to watch.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Felipe Drugovich impressed me the most. I think that he was the big surprise of the weekend. First of all, he qualified P2 which is very good. There are a lot of good rookies this year, for example, you have two rookies at ART, Robert Shwartzman at PREMA and Daniel Ticktum in DAMS and they are kind of expected to be up there.

Felipe and MP Motorsport were the biggest surprises for me. He won the race on Sunday and he clearly had the pace to win it, so I think that he did a great job.

NEXT UP

I personally believe that we might start seeing some more incidents. The rookies will start to feel a bit more confident in the car and they will start to get to grips with how everything works, the tyre management etc. and sometimes with confidence, comes trouble.