Bruno’s Take - Round 8

FIA Formula 2 CEO Bruno Michel looks back over another weekend of excellent racing and picks out his key topics from Round 8 in Budapest. He discusses the Mick Schumacher’s maiden win, the experienced heads amongst the pack, and the tight Championship battle.

Mick Schumacher wins

When it was made official that Mick Schumacher would join our grid this season, there was a lot of hype surrounding him, to say the least! Expectations were high and the German rookie was under a lot of pressure.

Slowly, but surely, he gained experience and learned the F2 ropes to start from reverse pole last weekend at the Hungaroring, and claimed a maiden win after sustaining race long pressure from Nobuharu Matsuhsita.

We hadn’t had that many media and photographers in one of our parc fermés since George Russell’s triumph in Abu Dhabi last year! The press conference room was also pretty packed, which proves, if need be, how meaningful that first victory was. I’m curious to see if this effectively launches Part 2 of Mick’s rookie season!

Experience matters

Schumacher’s rookie win, however, does not eclipse, that in F2, experience makes the difference. It’s a tough championship. The competition is fierce. One of our philosophies has always been to provide the drivers with demanding cars. This season, three experienced drivers have starred at the front: Nyck De Vries, Nicholas Latifi and Luca Ghiotto.

I was pleased to see the Canadian back to his winning ways on Saturday whilst the Dutchman took pole position and another podium finish. It was a bit more of a delicate race weekend for Ghiotto, but two other experienced drivers stepped up: first Jack Aitken on Saturday, and then Sérgio Sette Câmara on Sunday. The Brazilian has moved up to 3rd in the Championship ahead of Ghiotto.

Nothing is written in stone

62 points cover the top 5 in the Driver Championship. There is a maximum of 192 points left in the season with 4 rounds to go until the finale in Abu Dhabi. De Vries has an edge of 30 points over Latifi at the top. It’s tighter behind them with just 6 points in between Sette Câmara and Ghiotto, while Aitken stands only 1 point behind the Italian. Spa-Francorchamps and Monza will be two very crucial rounds.

With some emerging rookie talents such as Guanyu Zhou, Anthoine Hubert and Schumacher who will be eager to shine again, and other drivers like Matsushita, Louis Delétraz or Jordan King who have the speed and skillset to race at the front, the end of the 2019 campaign promises to be extremely exciting.

Until then, I would like to wish our drivers and teams a well-deserved summer break!