F2 season race chat

[chunterer]

Pourchaire on pole from Martins!

Verschoor 3rd.

Doohan down in 17th. Shocker!

There'll be plenty of action in the races.

[chunterer]

Crikey has F2 fallen totally out of favour with us?

The 1st weekend provided some great entertainment, but interestingly the only 'rookie' to get in amongst the experienced guys was Martins'.

[Akrapovic]

I rather enjoyed it. I don't get to watch F2 much, but tuned in for Bahrain and it seemed good fun. Martins looked great for his first F2 weekend.

[fergus_r]

I only saw the highlights of F2. The 8-minute clips on YouTube are pretty good for catching up with the action.

I take more of an interest in F3 - I very much enjoyed the Bahrain races despite a messy first race. Good grid (quality and quantity), the cars race well and they sound good.

[chunterer]

Martins was probably the standout of the newcomers, yes.
Although Maloney did a pretty good drive through the field in the 2nd race.

Of the returnees Pourchaire was quick but maybe a bit uncertain in wheel to wheel stuff I thought. Maybe he wanted a solid points haul from the opening weekend?
Boschung may have finally come of age as well!

[chunterer]

Cracking sprint race at Jeddah!

Martins looking like he might be a standout talent...

Pourchaire made a crazy move which yool him and poor Bearman out.

What did other posters think of the race?

[E.B]

Originally Posted by chunterer

What did other posters think of the race?

Agree re Martins... yes he was a bit fortunate in getting pole by 0.7, having benefitted from the. late red in qualy, but to go out and put a time like that down whilst the track was still evolving by the lap was good to see.

His fightback from 10th thanks to the personally hated reverse grid crap was the highlight of the race. I think we have a star of the future in him.

As for Pourchaire that was an FF rookie move. I have not seen misjudgement as bad as that in a long while. It cost him his championship lead, deservedly.

I ws also quite impressed by Iwasa managing to hold Martins off on the last lap, especially given Martins had DRS.

Given his pace this weekend and him starting the feature race from his well earned pole it is Martins race to lose. He certainly deserves to win from what he has shown this weekend.

[/my2cents]

[chunterer]

Martins' fluffed the 2nd race under pressure from Vesti, when the win or at least a podium was likely. But if that ends up being one of only a couple of mistakes this season he is going to be a title contender, no doubt.

Vesti did very well though seemingly managing his tyres earlier on and then coming on very strong after the tyres stops.

Iwasa did a very sensible job but I'm still far from convinced about his ultimate talent.

Elsewhere the other RB juniors had a shocking weekend overall! I would say that Hauger needs to win at least one of the races next time out to ensure he doesn't get left behind. Fittipaldi has done nothing so far to justify Marko signing him up, and of the other RB newcomers to F2 only Maloney and Crawford have shown anything thus far. I expected Hadjar to be one of the top 3 rookies. Let's see how they do next time.

And what do we make of Doohan so far? Kept his powder dry in Jeddah but hardly front running pace? I think I said last year that I wasn't convinced about the fanfare he was receiving from every corner. like Hauger he will need to deliver a strong weekend next event.

Teams wise so far the quickest cars are coming from ART, Prema, and arguably MP, although Hauger has been patchy and Daruvala has been nowhere in qualifying and only seems to make the most of his car during the races?