After a three week break SLR Formula 2 is back! We headed to Austria for round five where the Red Bull ring has always never failed to deliver entertaining races and no short of drama. Will we see that once more? Will Racerollers fantastic run of form come to an end? One Shot Quali! SLR Darnell scored his third F2 Pole position of the season to collect the first points of the round. Crispy2001 completed a UNI Virtuosi front row half a tenth off his teammate. SLR Southerner achieved his best qualifying result in the dry with third ahead of the in form and championship leader Raceroller. SLR Dodgy would impressively qualify fifth as the highest Evo class driver.
The Feature! As expected at a track like Austria for the first few laps we saw minimum change as most of the pack were all close. Only change was SLR Dodgy would lose a few places having started on the harder tyre. At the front Darnell was beginning to increase the gap to over a second from his teammate Crispy who was also doing the same to third place driver behind Southerner. That was until we saw our first move at the top from Raceroller who soon took the place from the ART driver for third. Lap six Crispy would blink first to make his pitstop hoping to over-cut his UNI teammate but whilst this was going on we had a fantastic dual going on further back between Evo Class drivers NonRipeLoki and J Lee Menz where the Campos driver was showing decent pace on the harder tyre. Two laps later the safety car came out which for some was poor timing but for Raceroller it was perfect who was the only driver at the front yet to pit and by doing so was rewarded being in a net first place once the stop was done. Lap eleven the safety car came in where we had SLR Dodgy yet to make his stop in first as well as N1GHT RANGER who was dropping like a stone from second also on the hard tyres. Due to unfortunate connection issues the Formula 2 pole curse for SLR Darnell continued after having to retire because of the problem. This meant after all the stops were made it was Crispy, Raceroller and Southerner in the top three all covered by within a second. Behind in fourth season one champion FRA Jam was making progress on the softs hoping to close the gap before the grip ran low. Into the last lap it was Crispy vs Raceroller for the win to which the Carlin driver fantastically pulled off the race winning overtake with just a few corners to go to yet again make it another feature race win for the championship leader. Crispy so near but yet so far had to settle for second with SLR Southerner completing the podium. UKBeastAssassin would make up for a poor qualifying to finish fourth ahead of SLR Cech and SLR Bennett. J Lee Menz would impressively finish seventh as the highest placed Evo Class driver ahead of FRA Jam who dropped places because of time penalties. NonRipeLoki and OwenHowell would complete the remaining points scoring positions available.
The Sprint. We had Jam on reverse grid pole sharing the front row with J Lee Menz with Bennett and Cech behind in row two. Away we went once more with absolute chaos into turn one. N1GHT RANGER completely mistiming his braking and SLR Semm straight lining to wipe out the drivers of Southerner and Raceroller where during that process resulted in Carlin driver Loki retiring being caught up in the aftermath. Lap four the safety car came in with Bennett, Jam and Menz covering the top three. After the shake up from the first turn we had battles everywhere! A massive battle for third between five drivers which soon became four as MasonGammon and Crispy made contact sending the HWA driver into the wall. Further back we had Raceroller and Southerner making their way through the pack into points scoring positions. Back at the front Crispy would make up four places within a few laps to climb into second position hoping to make up for just missing out on a feature win to hunt down Jam for the sprint victory. Despite closing the gap to absolutely nothing it wasn’t enough as Jam would claim his first F2 Victory of the season! Crispy once again had to settle for second with UKBeastAssassin taking the final podium position. Bennett would claim fourth ahead of the recovering Raceroller whose points in this race could become crucial come the end of the season. Cech would finish sixth really beginning to find great consistency the more we see him race with Evo class drivers Menz and Dodgy completing the points positions with Menz being the one to come out on top to make it a double Evo class win at Austria.
Austria began our six week consecutive race schedule for Formula 2 and we got off to a cracker. Up next we go home. We are off to Silverstone for the home of the British grand prix where there is no doubt for most on the grid they will want to be there and want a fantastic result.
Blogs driver of the round: J Lee Menz
Qualifying
1 SLR DARNELL 1:12.841
2 CRISPY2001
3 SLR SOUTHERNER
4 RACEROLLER22
5 SLR DODGY
6 MASONGAMMON05
7 UKBEASTASSASSIN
8 SLR CECH
9 J LEE MENZ
10 NONRIPELOKI
11 FRA JAM40
12 SLR BENNETT
13 SLR SEMM
14 SLADNCID
15 SLR XHAKA
16 OG JAMES 96
17 ll MONKEYY ll
18 N1GHT RANG3R 95
19 OWENHOWELL36
20 SLR HYPERZ DSQ
SLR Hyperz - Readying up early.
OUTCOME: 3LP and Quali ban for next race. SLR Hyperz warning after exceeding 6LPs
Feature
1 RACEROLLER22 1:14.691
2 CRISPY2001
3 SLR SOUTHERNER
4 UKBEASTASSASSIN
5 SLR CECH
6 SLR BENNETT
7 J LEE MENZ
8 OWENHOWELL36 - 5 SECS
9 FRA JAM40
10 NONRIPELOKI
11 SLR DODGY
12 ll MONKEYY ll
13 MASONGAMMON05
14 N1GHT RANG3R 95
15 SLR XHAKA
16 SLR SEMM
17 OG JAMES 96
18 SLR HYPERZ
19 SLADNCID
20 SLR DARNELL DNF
OwenHowell36 vs 5 Second time penalty
Outcome: Removal of 5 second time penalty.
Reason: Owen seems to has all the right stuff to get his 5 secs removed and the stewards believe it should be removed.
Sprint
1 FRA JAM40
2 CRISPY2001 1:14.474
3 UKBEASTASSASSIN
4 SLR BENNETT
5 RACEROLLER22
6 SLR CECH
7 J LEE MENZ
8 SLR DODGY
9 SLR SOUTHERNER
10 OWENHOWELL36
11 ll MONKEYY ll
12 N1GHT RANG3R 95 + 10 SECS
13 OG JAMES 96
14 SLADNCID
15 SLR XHAKA
16 SLR HYPERZ DNF
17 MASONGAMMON05 DNF
18 NONRIPELOKI DNF
19 SLR SEMM DNF
20 SLR DARNELL DNS
SLR Southerner vs N1GHT RANG3R 95 & SLR Semm - Lap 1 T1
Outcome: +10 SECS & 6LP to N1GHT RANG3R 95 & QUALI BAN & 6LP to SLR Semm
Reason: Night Ranger Missies his braking point and causes a collision 10 secs and 6 points. Semm Causing a collision after going full speed into t1 meaning 6 LP and quali ban due to DNF.
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