After a short stint in the Americas, Formula 2 made its return to racing in Europe at the beautiful Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo. Coming off a high of Montreal, with MP Motorsport and Minì sitting at the top of the championship, Monaco set opportunities to continue dominating the top of the grid and extend their lead.
Free Practice took place in the sunny afternoon in Monaco, with the drivers eager to take on the legendary track in Monaco.
Unfortunately, Oliver was unable to participate in the bulk of Free Practice. He had an issue with the car on his warm-up lap, in which he was forced to retire his car, without any opportunity to put in any racing laps in during the session. This resulted in Oliver coming out of the session with a fastest time of 1:44.671.
On the other hand, Gabriele, from the start of the session, shot up the pack with fastest lap times. He exhibited great pace on the tyres, competing back and forth with Alex Dunne for the fastest lap throughout the afternoon session.
Near the closing minutes, Gabriele secured the fastest time of the session, with a 1:21.809, with Kush Maini and Alex Dunne consecutively sitting behind him within less than a tenth of a second.
Free Practice Results:
For a change in qualifying format, two groups of 11 went out on a sunny Friday afternoon to determine their positions in the Sprint and Feature Race.
Having taken part in Group A was Gabriele, showing immediate promise with clean driving and controlled speed. He competed for pole position, but ended up loosely missing out on the third row to Dino Beganovic, qualifying for P4 with a fastest 1:21.180.
For the closing 15-minute second half of the session, Oliver took part in Group B. In a great comeback from the unlucky issue he faced with his car in the free practice. Considering his lack of opportunity to produce any racing laps during free practice, Oliver set a good lap time of 1:21.673 to secure P6 in the Group B session.
Qualifying Results:
Following a strong qualifying, Gabriele started on the second row of the grid in P3, and Oliver started in P12.
In a tight launch, Gabriele was pushed out of his P3 position in a squeeze on the opening start. Gabriele did end up back in P3, and maintained his position for the bulk of the race. He competed in clean, push-and-pull racing with Roman Bilinski in front of him and Joshua Dürksen behind him, coming home for a podium finish for the sprint race.
Unfortunately, Oliver had an unlucky race, having to pit at the end of lap 3 with an issue to the car, after receiving a puncture on his car where he changed onto super soft tyres. The supersofts were not ideal to maintain for the bulk of the race; therefore, the team had to retire the car.
Although an unfortunate end for Oliver, he ended up running 23 laps and maintained an unwavering confidence for the final feature race ahead.
Sprint Race Results:
The second Formula 2 race in Monaco took place in cooler conditions than the day before, with Gabriele starting in P3 on the second row with Oliver in P11.
On the initial launch, Gabriele moved up to P5, while Oliver fell back to P12. Gabriele was side by side with Martinius Stenshorne on the opening lap, but held on to his position. Following the tight battles on the opening lap, Oliver experienced contact after attempting to squeeze through the inside of Ritomo Miyata, where he received damage to his front suspension. Nevertheless, despite the handicap of an off-set steering rack for the remainder of the race, he controlled the car and stayed on track.
On lap 23, Oliver came in for his mandatory pit stop, where he came out in P20. Not far after, Gabriele, on lap 26, also came in for his pit stop coming out in P16. Before Gabriele could fully warm up his tyres, he was overtaken by Sebastian Montoya, falling back to P17.
By lap 36, the provisional race leader, Rafael Camara, ran off track, resulting in a virtual safety car. By this time, Gabriele had climbed to P15, with Oliver not too far behind him in P17.
Once final mandatory pit stops were made by other teams, Gabriele was promoted to P12, and Oliver P15. Although, before they could both cross the line on the penultimate lap, Oliver overtook Mari Boya for P14, where he finished, and Gabriele climbed to P11 to cross the flags.
Feature Race Results:
Coming into Monaco on a high, Gabriele performed well, with a podium finish for Race 1 and was unlucky to be out of the points for race two. Despite that, he still came out of the weekend maintaining his championship lead.
Continuing, even with an unfortunate DNF in Race 1, Oliver persisted with great pace in Race 2, finishing in P14. Overall, the drivers exhibited promise in their drives, in the face of circumstances outside their control, and the difficulty of overtaking on the Monaco circuit.
With the introduction of the new circuit in Barcelona in a week, there is plenty of opportunity for the drivers to score more points.
Driver Standings After Round 2:
Team Standings After Round 2:
