Some thrilling rookie debuts and the argument for F1 sprint races is strengthened.
The 2021 F2 season kicked off with a fabulously gripping and exciting weekend of racing in Bahrain. Seven different drivers made it onto three podiums, demonstrating the incredible depth of talent in the field. With the departure of F2 veterans such as Jack Aitken and Luca Ghiotto from the series, and the promotion of three drivers to F1, there were plenty of seats to be filled over the winter. This has resulted in half of the drivers on the grid (11/22) being rookies. But if anyone thought this crop of first timers would give the old guard a bit of breathing space, they have been proved emphatically wrong from this first round.
Guanyu Zhou leads the championship by 9 points, having taken pole and the feature race win, but the two sprint races were won by rookies: Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri. Those two and several others in their first season were constantly battling it out in the top 5 over the course of the weekend. Last years F3 champion Piastri really stood out to me, outperforming his title-favourite teammate Robert Schwartzman. His high risk, last lap battle with Christian Lundgaard and Zhou during the Sprint Race 2 was thrilling to watch, and earned him a win in only his second race. He showed great commitment to take the lead on the safety car restart during the feature race, before dropping to 3rd and then being eliminated in a racing incident with Dan Ticktum. I also thought Juri Vips showed considerable talent, but rotten luck left him with ‘nul points’.
11 fresh faces were not the only new addition to F2 in 2021. The entire format has changed. Qualifying for Sunday’s feature race takes place on Friday, with the top ten reversed for Saturdays first sprint race. The top ten finishers of this race are then reversed for a second sprint race in the afternoon. Simple, right? But the format actually flowed much more smoothly than I had anticipated, and makes a great case for the introduction of sprint races in F1. Although the format for these proposed races looks different to the structure used in F2, the feeder series should surely quash some of the fears of its use in F1. Sunday’s feature race still remained the most important race of the weekend, even with two events preceding it.
Driving style varied throughout, with those starting lower down in the shorter races attacking like they had nothing to lose, and those higher up taking a more considered and cautious approach. I found it very interesting to see how drivers managed this and adapted their driving approach accordingly. A regular argument against sprint-qualifying is that it would bring artificial drama to races, shaking up the grid just for the sake of it. We can see though from F2 that the best drivers still rise to the top. Only 1 of 9 podium places in Bahrain was filled by a midfield team driver: David Beckman for Charouz. There are also plenty of examples in F1 of drivers starting lowdown the order but succeeding in the race. Lewis Hamilton has won from 14th and finished 4th from the pit lane (at Germany 2018 and Brazil 2017 respectively), and Checo Perez’s win from last at the Sakhir Grand Prix is still fresh in the minds of many.
Whilst a single sprint race has been a feature on the F2 calendar for some time, the introduction of a second injected the weekend with an extra dose of fun and raised the stakes for the drivers. The Bahrain circuit is particularly abrasive on tyres, and this coupled with start of season unreliability led to a number of surprising results. The following round at the vastly different Monaco street circuit should be riveting, but for alternative reasons. Overtaking is notoriously tricky and hence far more pressure will be placed on qualifying (both officially and through Sprint race 1 results). Furthermore, over half the grid have never raced at motorsport’s most demanding circuit, and only Zhou and Ralph Boschung have driven there in F2. Along with the size and agility of the cars, there is much to suggest Formula 2’s offerings in Monte Carlo will outshine those of Formula 1. The only shame is that we have to wait nearly two months for it!
