Round 9 of the Formula 2 championship saw us take a trip to our favourite Spa in Belgium......Spa.
In one shot Quali we once again saw ZyDRAD take pole for the seventeenth time in his F2 career. The reigning Champion shared the front row with the inform ART driver of HamJam. Behind them on row two was SLR Darnell and SLR Mckeon. The Charouz driver hoping to build on a solid round at Hungary last week. Championship leader JamHam had to settle for fifth hoping to bounce back from a shocker by the season one champions standards last week.
The Feature! Revs were up and away we went at Spa! The feature race saw a safety car out in lap one following an incident between Bennett, J Lee Menz and F2 debutant Halo. The incident saw Bennett unfortunately retire. On the restart we had ZyDRAD from Ham and close behind was Darnell. Along the kemmel straight going into Les Combes was where we saw most of our overtakes of the round and it started with Ham taking the lead from ZyDRAD into the lead. Coming up to the pit stops and the ART pair of Ham and Jam were the last to pit when starting on the softs. Eventually making their stop ZyDRAD managed the undercut on Ham to retake the net lead only to be overtaken straight away by Ham along the kemmel straight. Lap later same spot ZyDRAD takes the place back! What a fight for the win we were already having. Their battle soon resulted in welcoming Darnell and Jam into the party making it a battle between four for the win. Lap 10 we saw drama where Jam makes the absolute smallest of contacts with ZyDRADS rear resulting in the ART driver losing the rear sending the driver into a spin....Darnell doing well to avoid the spinning car. Come the finish line it was Ham who once more take the win to keep up his fantastic form and recovery from a troublesome start to the season. ZyDRAD would have to settle for second and Darnell would once again claim another feature podium cementing his status as now a Formula 2 alien. Jam would have to settle for fourth. Further behind making the alternate strategy work was SLR Southerner in fifth making places on Raceroller and Mckeon who had corner cutting pens. UKBeastAssassin would come home 8th to start on reverse grid pole for the sprint.
The Sprint! Away we went once more with the Charouz pair leading from the front. Going up Eau Rouge and the kemmel straight for the first time saw Racerollers straight line speed in full affect taking Mckeon and attempting a move round the outside of Beast for the lead resulting in eventual contact sending the Dams driver round. Next couple of laps saw the ART pair of Ham and Jam slice their way right up until they faced the first Charouz driver in their way of Mckeon. A couple of laps later the ART duo would also take the other Charouz driver leading once again a ART one - two. With just a few laps to go SLR Semm clowned into the wall entering the pits to bring out a late safety car! On the restart it was no team orders from ART as for half a dozen corners we saw Jam and Ham fight for the lead where eventually Ham comes out of top! Only for the lap after Jam to take the place back down the kemmel straight. UKBeastAssassin was lurking just behind in third hoping to pick up the pieces incase of contact which wasn’t to be. Round the final corner it would be Jam crossing the line first only to fall to second following a very late corner cutting pen meaning it was another win for HamJam. On his seventieth F2 race it was another beauty from the Beast to provisionally take back to back Sprint podiums. In fourth we saw the ever consistent Southerner take his ninth consecutive top five finish in F2 just pipping Bennett who had to settle for 5th despite starting 15th. Cracking drive! Rounding off the top eight was Raceroller, Mckeon and Halo who would score points in both his F2 feature and sprint debuts for UNI Virtuosi. Title contender ZyDRAD would retire early on following trouble in the opening few laps putting a blow to his title defence.
Up next it’s another fast one as we head to Monza where the saga continuous in this fantastic Formula 2 championship.
Report by – SLR Southerner
Qualifying
1 ZYDRAD 1:53.810
2 HAMJAM2002
3 SLR DARNELL
4 SLR MCKEON
5 XX JAMHAM XX
6 SLR SEMM
7 RACEROLLER22
8 SLR BARLOW
9 SLR SOUTHERNER
10 OWENHOWELL36
11 SSR HALO
12 BENNETT628
13 SLR TEDDY
14 J LEE MENZ
15 UKBEASTASSASIN
Feature
1 HAMJAM2002
2 ZYDRAD
3 SLR DARNELL
4 XX JAMHAM XX 1:55.901
5 SLR SOUTHERNER
6 RACEROLLER22
7 SLR MCKEON
8 UKBEASTASSASSIN
9 SSR HALO
10 SLR SEMM + 10 SECS
11 SLR BARLOW
12 SLR TEDDY
13 J LEE MENZ + 20 SECS
14 OWENHOWELL36
15 BENNETT628 DNF
Bennett628 Vs SSR Halo Vs J Lee Menz -causing terminal damage (feature lap 1)
Outcome: 20 secs + 4LP for Menz
Reason: Trying to go 3 wide into Eau Rouge is simply never going to work. Bennett and Halo are already next to eachother and Menz attempts to go into the middle of both of them. Inevitably this causes a big crash and Bennett retires. Menz should of been more patient.
UKBeastAssassin Vs SLR Semm - Dangerous driving (Feature lap 12)
Outcome: 10 secs + 2LP for Semm
Reason: There is no excuse for randomly hitting the brakes in the middle of a straight, luckily beast was aware so no crash occured. This was a dangerous brake check and that's why we've given a penalty.
Sprint
1 HAMJAM2002 1:55.759
2 XX JAMHAM XX
3 UKBEASTASSASSIN
4 SLR SOUTHERNER
5 BENNETT628
6 RACEROLLER22
7 SLR MCKEON
8 SSR HALO
9 SLR BARLOW
10 SLR DARNELL
11 SLR TEDDY
12 J LEE MENZ
13 SLR SEMM DNF
14 ZYDRAD DNF
15 OWENHOWELL36 DNF
Raceroller22 vs UKBeastAssassin - spinning another car (sprint lap 1)
Outcome: Racing incident
Reason: Us stewards feel like Beast could not of left much more room for Raceroller. The contact between the two cars is also so minimal and again is unfortunately another example of the awful contact system within F1 2020.
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