We arrive at Russia for Round Twelve of the Formula 2 season and the last of our seven back to back races before our stars have a well deserved break. Despite the departure of ZyDRAD we still had a sensational title battle between the brothers of JamHam and HamJam separated by a matter of points. With the Constructors title also settled the gloves were officially off! One Shot Quali! It was one ART at the front and one ART at the back! HamJam the hunter in this Championship was the man to be at the front to claim another pole position for the feature. SLR Darnell would yet again start second still searching for his first Formula 2 pole. Starting behind in row two was Freeman making his full time debut in the UNI Virtuosi and UKBeastAssassin. The Feature! Revs were up and away we went and there was lots of chaos before we got to turn one! Contact between Ranger and Barlow resulted in the Hitech having to take abrasive action which ended up costing Southerner of his front wing. Further down was where the chaos was. Contact between Raceroller and UKBeastAssassin sent the Charouz driver in the wall somehow not retiring and with cars avoiding this resulted in the DAMS debutant of NonRipeLoki retiring after getting caught up in cars swerving to avoid the stranded Charouz driver to end his debut after only a few seconds. Unsurprisingly the safety car came out. The order had changed however as both Darnell and Freeman got the jump on HamJam despite the pole starter starting on the softer tyre. Safety car comes in and away we go again. Ham immediately gets past Freeman into turn one and later in the lap would pass Darnell to get back into the lead. Making the absolute most of the tyre advantage in the early phase of the feature. At this point JamHam had already made his way up to ninth. After all the drivers had pit it was HamJam with a 4.5 second lead from Darnell but the Campos driver now the one with the tyre advantage.....could he close the gap and pounce? JamHam would be seventh behind UKBeastAssassin and SLR Southerner but would soon make like work of both to move up to fifth. Jam would continue to progress and take places of SLR Mckeon and Raceroller in the closing stages to get into a podium scoring position. Come the finish line the gap at the top has shrunk but not enough! Another feature win for HamJam and a crucial one. Darnell would have to settle for second and JamHam would finish third despite starting right at the back. Raceroller would take fourth with SLR Mckeon behind in fifth despite also starting very far down as well as SLR Southerner who would finish sixth. SLR Semm would take seventh and UKBeastAssassin eighth despite a late spin with a couple of corners to go. Remaining points finishers would be Bennett in ninth and SLR Barlow impressing again to take Tenth. The Sprint! On reverse grid pole was UKBeastAssassin putting him in a fantastic position to finally try and get that maiden F2 win. Joining him on the front row would be SLR Semm and behind them on row two were the Feature race climbers of SLR Southerner and SLR Mckeon. Lights out and chaos already after a hundred metres! Contact between SLR Mckeon and Raceroller which takes out SLR Southerner in the process ends all their hopes of points for the sprint and ends the Carlin drivers run of nineteen consecutive point scoring finishes. This however gave a massive chance to drivers who don’t often score points now three of the big guns were out of the equation.
VSC out and after all that it was Semm leading from Beast and JamHam. Once racing resumed Beast made the move for first but Semm was able to hold. However this invited JamHam to make a move on both and succeed in doing so! Brilliant stuff! Darnell would also do the same a few corners later on both drivers. Drama soon after as Semm missed his braking point slamming into the back of HamJam resulting in the MP Motorsport driver also ending his chance of points for the sprint. Lap six we had interesting battles for sixth between SLR Barlow and OwenHowell and a great battle for eighth between BaggieFan and NonRipeLoki who had done brilliant from starting at the back. Lap seven we now had a ART one-two but only for a bit as HamJam would spin from traction allowing both Beast and Darnell past to both battle it out for second position. Ham would now find himself in a battle for fourth with a wounded car against SLR Barlow.....a battle nobody predicted would happen. Come the last lap we had a thrilling battle for second between Beast and Darnell. It was sweaty stuff. Come the finish though and its JamHam who takes the sprint victory! UKBeastAssassin would win the battle for second from Darnell who would settle for third and a double podium scoring round for the Campos driver. Freeman would have a fantastic race to finish fourth despite starting very far at the back who pipped a limping HamJam who had to settle for fifth. Barlow would finish sixth to top off a fantastic round for the Hitech driver. NonRipeLoki takes seventh on his sprint debut worthy of possibly driver of the day after starting from last and to take the last points scoring position is Bennett who denied BaggieFan from his first ever points in F2. And that was the round of Russia for you. An absolute thriller with many battles and carnage! And now we enter a well earned three week break. With two rounds left to go its unbelievably tight at the top for the title and still all to play for for third and fourth in the championship. We will see you in Brazil for where the saga continues! – SLR Southerner
Qualifying
1 HAMJAM2002 1:42.361
2 SLR DARNELL
3 PSR FREEMAN
4 UKBEASTASSASSIN
5 RACEROLLER22
6 BENNETT628
7 SLR SEMM
8 OWENHOWELL36
9 NONRIPELOKI
10 J LEE MENZ
11 ETUSKO6595
12 BAGGIEFAN 1995
13 SLR TEDDY
14 N1GHT RANG3R 95
15 SLR BARLOW
16 SLR SOUTHERNER
17 SLR MCKEON
18 XX JAMHAM XX
19 BOHQVEEN
Feature
1 HAMJAM2002
2 SLR DARNELL
3 XX JAMHAM XX 1:44.488
4 RACEROLLER22
5 SLR MCKEON
6 SLR SOUTHERNER
7 SLR SEMM
8 UKBEASTASSASSIN
9 BENNETT628
10 SLR BARLOW
11 ETSUKO6595
12 OWENHOWELL36
13 J LEE MENZ
14 BAGGIEFAN 1995
15 SLR TEDDY
16 N1GHT RANG3R 95
17 BOHQVEEN DNF
18 PSR FREEMAN DNF
19 NONRIPELOKI DNF
NonRipeLoki Vs Baggiefan 1995 - Dangerous driving (Feature lap 1)
Outcome: Racing incident
Reason: UKBeastAssassin was spun by another car and Baggie was reacting to that by slightly moving to the left to avoid any potential damage to him and not to abuse ghosting. It was incredibly unfortunate for Loki to be caught up but we feel a penalty for Baggie would be harsh
Sprint
1 XX JAMHAM XX
2 UKBEASTASSASSIN
3 SLR DARNELL
4 PSR FREEMAN
5 HAMJAM2002
6 SLR BARLOW
7 NONRIPELOKI
8 BENNETT628 1:45.377
9 BAGGIEFAN 1995
10 RACEROLLER22
11 SLR SEMM
12 N1GHT RANG3R 95
13 SLR SOUTHERNER
14 SLR MCKEON
15 ETSUKO6595
16 J LEE MENZ
17 OWENHOWELL36 DNF
18 SLR TEDDY DNF
19 BOHQVEEN DNS
Raceroller22 Vs SLR McKeon - causing a collision (sprint lap 1)
Outcome: Racing incident
Reason: Roller gets a lightning start off the line and looks to try and overtake Southerner and McKeon. He tries to go down the middle of them both however clips both cars and all 3 end up in the wall and with damage. There's no way McKeon was at fault for this incident.
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