Round twelve of the SLR Formula 2 season was held at Sochi for the Russian Grand Prix. A track with plenty of run off, places to overtake and areas to track exceed. Some being key ingredients for a cracking race or in our case races. Today like the round previous we had a race in the wet and a race in the dry. Who would come out on top in both?
One Shot Quali! The top four in the championship standings would take the top four spots in qualifying but it would be Crispy2001 once again achieving pole and getting the first points of the round just ahead of UKBeastAssassin. In row two was SLR Darnell and championship leader Raceroller22. Back in tenth was our best Evo Class qualifier in SLR Dodgy as the battle for the first Evo Class championship continues to intensify.
The Feature! Away we went in a wet feature race and we already had a crash before turn two in SLR Allen but just after that UKBeastAssassin bravely made a move round the outside of turn three to take the lead off pole sitter Crispy which would already prove to be a crucial part of the race. With the tricky conditions and no DRS we didn’t see much overtaking as such, just cars all grouping together. Took a few laps to see battles intensify where we had the trio of SLR Niki, SLR Cech and SLR Southerner all enjoy overtaking one another on multiple occasions. Later on Cech would get caught out by the conditions by spinning losing a lot of ground on that battle. Just ahead we had another great battle between SLR Ham19 and Raceroller with the reigning champion coming out on top seemingly feeling comfortable in these conditions. Lap seven we saw the softs for the first time on a slowly drying track from MasonGammon but this proved to be a move too early. The best strategy was the wets to the end which was great unless you were using pad as despite all the efforts in being gentle with the tyres you would still get a puncture just as Crispy and Southerner found out with a couple of laps to go. The puncture for Crispy another huge blow for his title aspirations. In the last few laps half the pack would finish on the softs but were mainly drivers from ninths below. Come the end it was UKBeastAssassin who would come out best in the wet with his second ever Formula 2 win. SLR Darnell would take another second place to his name with Ham rounding off an impressive performance in third. Raceroller would have to settle for fourth with Niki and Division finishing behind. SLR Dylan would take seventh just ahead of a recovering Crispy and Southerner who despite the punctures still got points. J Lee Menz would again get an official point in tenth with also the Evo Class feature win.
The Sprint. Crispy would start in pole once again but this time sharing the front row with SLR Dylan. Behind in row two was Division and Niki. Away we go in the dry and going round the first bend we saw a massive crash where seemingly Niki veered across into Ham sending last seasons champion into the path of SLR Darnell sending Ham into a scary crash ending his sprint race seconds after lights out. For the first few laps it was all aboard the Dylan train until lap three where Crispy made his move into the lead. All would go to waste soon after as Crispy would lose traction in sector two resulting in heavy damage and having to pit. Later in the race it would get from bad to worse as Crispy would soon retire probably ending all hopes of Formula 2 title on his debut season. Dylan and Division would soon start fighting for the lead where they ended up making contact. Division getting damage who would soon drop down places from the result of it who would then also retire. There would be nothing separating the front four between Dylan, Raceroller, UKBeastAssassin and Niki for the lead. It was an incredible watch but who would win? UKBeastAssassin in the remaining laps would pick them off one by one to brilliantly win the sprint race and become only the third SLR F2 driver to do the double in an official F2 round! Raceroller would just finish behind in second less than half a second from the win who also just finished ahead of SLR Dylan. In fourth Southerner recovered from a spin earlier on just pipping SLR Dodgy in a battle in the last few laps. Dodgy taking the Evo sprint win. Due to the game being clapped Niki finished down in sixth ahead of J Lee Menz making it a double points finish. In eighth for the first time in SLR Formula 2 SLR Xhaka finishes in the points making the most of people tripping over and retiring to claim his first ever point!
With three races to go Racerollers lead grows ever stronger whilst the battle for second has now piped up following the Beasts success in Russia. The Evo Class title battle remains close as ever as we now enter a five week break from Formula 2 racing….yes five! We will see you in the new year of 2022 where we will crown a new SLR Formula 2 champion. Will Raceroller get the job done? Have a great Christmas folks!
Blogs Driver of the Round: UKBeastAssassin
Qualifying
1 CRISPY2001 1:42.459
2 UKBEASTASSASSIN
3 SLR DARNELL
4 RACEROLLER22
5 SLR HAM19
6 SLR CECH
7 SLR NIKI
8 SLR SOUTHERNER
9 ll MONKEYY ll
10 SLR DODGY
11 J LEE MENZ
12 SLR DYLAN
13 MASONGAMMON05
14 ll DIVISION ll
15 SLR ALLEN
16 OWENHOWELL36
17 EAAIDSDAN53
18 SLR XHAKA
Feature
1 UKBEASTASSASSIN
2 SLR DARNELL
3 SLR HAM19
4 RACEROLLER22
5 SLR NIKI
6 ll DIVISION ll
7 SLR DYLAN
8 CRISPY2001 1:53.873
9 SLR SOUTHERNER
10 J LEE MENZ
11 SLR CECH
12 ll MONKEYY ll
13 SLR DODGY
14 EAAIDSDAN53
15 MASONGAMMON05
16 SLR ALLEN
17 OWENHOWELL36
18 SLR XHAKA
19 -
20 -
Sprint
1 UKBEASTASSASSIN 1:45.530
2 RACEROLLER22
3 SLR DYLAN
4 SLR SOUTHERNER
5 SLR DODGY
6 J LEE MENZ
7 SLR NIKI + 10 SECS
8 SLR XHAKA
9 OWENHOWELL36
10 EAAIDSDAN53
11 SLR CECH
12 SLR DARNELL
13 MASONGAMMON05 DNF
14 ll MONKEYY ll DNF
15 ll DIVISION ll DNF
16 CRISPY2001 DNF
17 SLR ALLEN DNF
18 SLR HAM19 DNF
19 - -
20 - -
SLR Ham19 vs SLR Niki - Lap 1
Outcome: 10 seconds 3LP to SLR Niki
Reason: Niki clearly moves to left without considering Hams position and takes him out of the race completely.
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