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F2 saw a fight for the lead in today’s Feature Race and the top three finishers spoke to FormulaNerds about how consistency will be the “key” to this year’s championship.
Formula 2’s Feature Race around the Red Bull Ring saw a rookie secure his maiden win in the championship after a tough battle on the track. Gabriel Bortoleto, who won the F3 Championship last year, took his first victory in F2 today after working his way through the field with a tyre strategy that played out just how he would have hoped.
Joining Bortoleto on the podium were Franco Colapinto of MP Motorsport and Isack Hadjar of Campos Racing. Colapinto opted for a different tyre strategy to Bortoleto, but it worked out just as well with the Argentinian driver finishing 4.296 seconds behind. Hadjar, however, had a difficult race.
The Campos Racing driver had a frequent conversation with his engineer regarding his position and his teammate’s position. Ultimately, Hadjar finished ahead of Pepe Martí, who unfortunately, received a 10-second Stop-Go penalty, which has been converted into a 30-second time penalty.
However, as a result of today’s Feature Race, the gap Hadjar to Paul Aron in the championship is 11 points. Bortoleto is now third in the standings, 21 points behind Hadjar and Colapinto is fifth on 75 points.. Zane Maloney, who failed to finish the race, is P4.
In the post-Feature Race press conference, FormulaNerds spoke to the top three about their seasons so far. More specifically, we asked what the most important thing they’ve learnt is that they can take forward into the seven half of the season to help their championship fight.
Consistency, consistency, consistency
So far this season, F2 has seen 12 different race winners in: Maloney, Dennis Hauger, Enzo Fittipaldi, Roman Stanek, Hadjar, Colapinto, Taylor Barnard, Zak O’Sullivan, Victor Martins, Jak Crawford, Oliver Bearman and now Bortoleto.
Aron, who leads the championship, has yet to win a race. However, he has finished on the podium in at least one race every weekend. When speaking to FormulaNerds, Bortoleto, Colapinto and Hadjar all reiterated the importance of consistency and touched on Aron as the prime example.
Bortoleto answered first and he made it clear that to succeed, the main thing is to finish the races. He told FormulaNerds:
“Don’t crash, finish races. I think that’s what Aron’s doing, he’s very fast but didn’t win races yet this season and yet he’s leading the championship with 30 points ahead of me from what I understood. This shows that finishing races on points is the main thing.”
Last year in Formula 3, Bortoleto only won two races at the beginning of the season. They were feature races and therefore, produced a high number of points, but for the remainder of the season, the McLaren junior was consistently in the points, bar the weekend at Spa.
Formula 2 Race Winner! ?
What a drive, @gabortoleto85! ???#AustrianGP ?? pic.twitter.com/uIQzOZJkZY
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) June 30, 2024
Colapinto echoed Bortoleto’s comments. The Williams junior admitted that whilst consistency is key, he hasn’t necessarily been that consistent. He spoke to FormulaNerds, saying:
“I knew to be consistent was the key, but I was not consistent in the beginning of the year. One thing was what I wanted to do and another thing was what I could do and I couldn’t be consistent, so I think it’s something that will be very important with the team and myself.
“I’m feeling quite consistent in qualifying now, that is the key as Gabriel said, that’s why Aron is leading the championship and why he’s been consistent on the podium every weekend. The main thing is not to win races but to be there, to have the pace in the race.
“but I think here, if you don’t have the pace in the races you are really going to struggle because the races are long, you have pitstops and there are so many strategies, but you need to be strong in the car. Consistency is key, same in F3 and same in F1. But here, especially this year, you can see Aron being consistent and [gaining] a step compared to others.”
‘Anything can happen’
Hadjar spoke about consistency but also what Campos Racing need to do as a team. Speaking in the post-race press conference, Hadjar told FormulaNerds:
“Last year, I had destroyed confidence but I gained it back this year with a new team and what I’ve learned is that the Sunday’s race is a really long one and anything can happen.
“I always have that outlook that anything can happen and we can get the job done. My approach has changed a bit and we need to also be more neat on reliability, there’s not much more we can do. We need to fix the issues and be more consistent.”
Headline image: GettyImages