Bruno’s take - Round 5

Rookies Rocket

I was really pleased to see Anthoine Hubert, Juan Manuel Correa and Guanyu Zhou all finish together on Sunday’s podium. It’s important to show that in our championship, although experience is a factor, the rookies can also star. Anthoine and Guanyu have been pretty strong since the start of the season, and it was nice to see Juan Manuel back on the podium this weekend. All three of them are featured in the Top 8 of the current Drivers’ Standings which is fantastic! Also, Giuliano Alesi scored his first championship point on Saturday. Let’s see if they can grab even more this week at the Red Bull Ring.

A Change at The Top

Nyck De Vries was just one point behind Nicholas Latifi in the Championship after Monaco. In France, he took another win from fourth on the grid and the bonus points for fastest lap while the Canadian had another disappointing weekend. This means that for the first time since Baku, we see a change at the top. Behind the leading pair, Jack Aitken had another strong weekend to move up to third, while Sérgio Sette Câmara climbed to fourth. We’re about to reach the halfway point of the season and the title race is still wide opened!

What Is Next?

While De Vries and Latifi are the current strong men, we should keep a close eye on the rest of the field, starting with Sette Câmara who scored the most points at Le Castellet. The Brazilian was the quickest man on Friday in both free practice and qualifying: Is this the turning point in his season? DAMS have been particularly strong with Latifi so far and have been expecting their Brazilian driver to fight at the front more regularly. Let’s see what he can do in Austria. Aitken also bounced back well from a poor Monaco round and the Briton seems to have adjusted well at Campos. More than half of the drivers scored points in France which has been the case in almost every round except for Monaco. As always, the competition is fierce.

One of our drivers has received a suspension for next event before we’ve even reached mid-season, and I feel for Mahaveer Raghunathan. A few drivers have also accrued quite a lot of penalty points this far. I believe that together with the FIA, we should think how we can best apply the penalty points system for F3 and F2. I believe that what works for F1 does not necessarily work at our level. Obviously, this cannot be changed for this season, but will need to be addressed for the future.