Photo: Macau GP Organising Committee

This weekend marks a big change for grand prix racing, as a new sprint race is run to decide who takes British GP pole. Sprint qualifying will be 100km, a distance most drivers last raced over in their junior careers

The second-shortest world championship Formula 1 race is set to take place this Saturday, with a 17-lap bout around Silverstone acting as the focal point of a format shake-up the owners of F1 have been angling over for some time.

It will controversially declare its winner the poleman for the British Grand Prix, which is the first time a series at a national level or higher has used something other than session laptimes (from practice or qualifying) or championship points (often when weather has led to session cancellations) to establish who officially gets pole other than IndyCar’s Iowa heat races in 2012*

Knockout events such as the Formula Ford Festival do use the winner of preceding races to set grids, but those heat races have their own qualifying sessions where the statistical record of taking pole is awarded.

That factor alone isn’t just what’s making this a step in the dark, as F1 has never scheduled races to be this short. Previous occasions where grands prix have ended up just north of 100 kilometres, or just over half that in the case of the flooded 1991 Australian Grand Prix, have been due to red flags. Drivers and teams prepare their cars for 200km or more.

The British F1 championship never ran races this short in the 1970s, and ignoring Bologna’s F1 Indoor Trophy events then the last race to use F1 regulations and be scheduled to be shorter than 100km were the 1967 Spring Cup heats at Oulton Park.

So when was the last time each of this year’s F1 field were sprinting for success in a single-seater?

Nikita Mazepin, Mick Schumacher & Yuki Tsunoda F2 2020 Sochi sprint race
Distance: 29.041km

A huge accident involving Jack Aitken and Luca Ghiotto cut this race short just as the Formula 2 title battle was getting tense, and half-points being awarded cost Yuki Tsunoda the title runner-up spot (if his finishing position went unchanged had this race run for the full duration).

Aitken and Ghiotto collided as they ran side-by-side through the very long Turn 3 left-hander as they fought over fourth.

Both went into the outside barriers at high speed, after Ghiotto’s car had already been sent airborne, and were able to retrieve themselves. Ghiotto did just in time before his car set on fire. The damage to the barriers neccessitated a red flag stoppage, and the length of those repairs meant the race wasn’t restarted and the results taken from the end of lap five.

Reversed grid poleman Guanyu Zhou was therefore named winner, ahead of Nikita Mazepin, Mick Schumacher and then the would-be retirees Aitken and Ghiotto. This proved costly in points terms for Schumacher’s main rivals Yuki Tsunoda and Callum Ilott, who were classified sixth and seventh.

Nicholas Latifi F2 2019 Sochi sprint race
Distance: 87.521km

Ghiotto withstood pressure from new F2 champion Nyck de Vries to seize victory in another truncated Sochi sprint race the year before, following a heavy lap one accident involving Aitken and Mazepin that led to Mazepin going wide and flying back onto the track and into Nobuharu Matsushita. Both ended up hurtling into the barriers, and the race was red flagged.

With de Vries having wrapped up the title in the previous race, his main rival Nicholas Latifi had nothing to lose. However the Canadian finished fourth, behind de Vries after starting ahead of him, and only got his finishing position after DAMS team-mate Sergio Sette Camara was penalised five seconds for rejoining the track unsafely.

De Vries finished second in the restarted 15-lap race, and Ilott was third.

Lando Norris & George Russell F2 2018 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

The eventual 2018 F2 title contenders individually all had their worst weekends in Monaco, with Lando Norris doing the best job in making the sprint race podium but also being the only of the year’s top four to actually score on Monaco’s streets.

Ferrari junior Antonio Fuoco started from reversed grid pole, having finished the feature race in eighth place despite a drive-through penalty for putting Ghiotto in the barrier at the start.

Norris, who also picked up a feature race penalty for contact, started third and took a place immediately from a slower-starting Aitken, who then lacked power up the hill and had to retire with a technical issue.

An early virtual safety car to clear cars stranded on the grid was followed by a full safety car when Sean Gelael crashed heavily at the Swimming Pool on lap four of 30.

After initially building a one-second lead at the restart, Fuoco’s advantage was cut by Norris to just 0.3 seconds at one stage, before a particularly slow lap from the McLaren junior increased the gap to 1.7s.

Following a brief VSC when George Russell crashed on lap 20, Fuoco’s lead went above three seconds, where it remained until the safety car returned on lap 27 when Alex Albon and Roy Nissany collided exiting the tunnel.

With little warning, the race was restarted with two laps to go with Norris right up behind Fuoco, but the Italian enjoyed a good gap once he put his foot down out of the Swimming Pool section. The race was immediately neutralised once again though as Nirei Fukuzumi and Santino Ferrucci skated deep into La Rascasse on the restart.

That secured Fuoco victory and Norris second, but post-race both were found to have breached the VSC regulations and had the time they had illegally gained added to their race time. That had no effect on Fuoco, but dropped Norris to third behind Louis Deletraz.

Pierre Gasly FE 2017 New York E-Prix 2
Distance: 95.697km

Photo: Formula E

Photo: Formula E

The absence of Sebastien Buemi due to World Endurance Championship commitments meant Pierre Gasly was called up to run in Formula E’s two New York E-Prix races in 2017 during his title-challenging sole season in Super Formula.

It wasn’t a great start as he clouted his car against the circuit limits during qualifying for Saturday’s E-Prix, and it meant he started from 19th place. He maqde up for it later in the day by charging up the order and scoring six points with a seventh place finish.

It was a turnaround of form for the next day too, as he topped the entirety of group qualifying, but a major wide moment in the super pole session limited him to fourth place on the grid when pole was definitely on the cards. With laptimes of just over a minute, it meant the whole 49-lap race of Sunday could be completed in under an hour.

He dropped back at first, but was rapidly closing in on the battle for second place at the end. In fact he approached the battle too quick, slamming into the barriers at the final corner as looked at making a move on the two Mahindra cars ahead of him before they met the chequered flag.

Once Buemi was back in the series, Gasly’s time in FE was quickly forgotten. However he is the first FE driver to then go on to win a F1 grand prix.

Charles Leclerc F2 2017 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

The first races on home soil for Charles Leclerc went, quite frankly, dreadfully. The F2 rookie took pole, and was controlling the feature race until a safety car interruption shortly after his pitstop.

The issue was the safety car picked up long-time leader Leclerc rather than yet-to-pit Oliver Rowland, who was then able to streak past Leclerc and make his own pitstop without a loss.

It only got worse for Leclerc, as vibrations on the front-left wheel led to a second trip to the pits. He rejoined the action, but then retired and that left him down in 17th on the grid for the sprint race.

While fellow rookie de Vries led home his veteran Rapax team-mate Johnny Cecotto Jr for an impressive first win, Leclerc toiled again as contact with Norman Nato at Rascasse put Nato into retirement and earned him a 10s penalty. His car wasn’t responding well after the clash though, and he soon retired too in the pits.

There was more turmoil in the coming weeks for Leclerc, but he put in some of the performances of his life thereafter to take a dominant title win.

Antonio Giovinazzi GP2 2016 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.11km

Photo: GP2 Media Service

A feature race error cost a potential maiden GP2 win for Antonio Giovinazzi on the streets of Monaco, but he instead left the principality with his first four races ending in 11th, retirement, 11th and 18th. A few weeks later he made up for it with a memorable double win in Baku.

He originally finished seventh in the Monaco feature race, but a penalty for cutting the chicane dropped him to 11th, and therefore took him from second to 11th on the sprint race grid.

There was no impressive comeback from the Italian, as he dropped to last on the opening lap and at first only gained places from drivers ahead retiring.

He passed Latifi, but that only brought him up to 18th and he remained in that position for 20 laps.

Honda junior Nobuharu Matsushita was promoted to pole off the back of Giovinazzi’s penalty, and he made the most of it to dominate. Marvin Kirchhofer finished a distant second, and Raffaele Marciello rounded out the podium.

Esteban Ocon GP3 2015 Abu Dhabi sprint race
Distance: 77.641km

Esteban Ocon claimed the 2015 GP3 title in the season finale at Yas Marina Circuit, while Campos Racing protege Alex Palou claimed his maiden series win.

Palou led the field off the line from reversed grid pole and quickly pulled away from Fuoco to triumph by 4.2 seconds.

Ocon made a strong start to his race from fifth on the grid, despite making light contact with title rival Luca Ghiotto. He went past Ghiotto and Matt Parry to move into third, which was enough to be champion.

Ghiotto did pressure Ocon for position for several laps but he couldn’t find a way through, meaning his five wins wasn’t enough against Ocon’s podium consistency for the ultimate prize.

Future Zakspeed star Jimmy Eriksson finished fifth, and Emil Bernstorff was sixth.

Max Verstappen F3 2014 Macau Grand Prix
Distance: 91.800km

Photo: MGPC

Photo: MGPC

The biggest race of Max Verstappen’s sole year in junior single-seaters was his win in front of his home fans in the Masters of F3 event at Zandvoort. That came in at 107.675km, but the shorter Macau Grand Prix carried more prestige.

Verstappen qualified third around the Guia Circuit, and moved up to second early on in the qualification race. However his inexperience got the better of him as he wrecked his rear suspension with contact and had to go to the pits to retire.

That left him in 24th place on the grid for the grand prix itself, denying any chance to use his pace to win. But it didn’t stop him from trying.

Five places were gained on lap one as a multi-car quagmire appeared following a collision between Vertstappen’s FIA European Formula 3 rivals Tom Blomqvist and Ocon further up the field. The resultant red flag delayed the action by some time, and wheen green flag racing ensued it became an early Verstappen masterclass.

He picked off on average one car per lap to rise all the way up to seventh place, taking fastest lap by almost a quarter of a second on the way. In addtion, he was the highest placed Volkswagen-powered driver in a race dominated by Mercedes’ unit.

Carlos Sainz Jnr FR3.5 2014 Hungaroring race 1
Distance: 96.382km

Roberto Merhi claimed his third Formula Renault 3.5 win in four races in a wet Hungary, finishing almost 30s clear of the field.

The Spaniard made his way from seventh on the grid to second at the start, then put several laps of pressure on poleman Oliver Rowland, who eventually cracked when he ran deep at turn one.

Merhi then ran away at an astonishing pace, while countryman and points leader Carlos Sainz Jr had a strong beginning to the race too to overcome a bad qualifying session. From 14th on the grid he made it to fourth, but further progress was halted by fellow Red Bull junior Gasly who defended hard.

As the track dried, Gasly then hunted down Rowland for second successfully as Sainz settled for fourth and a cut to his championship lead. It was a performance that, while impressive, didn’t help his ambitions of a 2015 F1 seat.

Series debutant Ocon held off the attention of Jazeman Jaafar to take ninth.

Valtteri Bottas FIA F3 Int. Trophy 2011 Macau Grand Prix
Distance: 91.800km

Photo: MGPC

Photo: MGPC

Valtteri Bottas’s main focus in 2011 was GP3, which he won the title in, and he also got his first F1 test with Williams. At the end of the year the focus was on a F3 return at the Macau GP with Double R Racing, and it started off encouragingly as the Finn went fourth fastest in qualifying.

He then kept it clean to retain that position in the qualification race, with some drivers able to get past but making mistakes that undid any advantage they briefly had over Bottas.

The main race was a different matter though, with far more risks being taken given what was on the line, and in the last of his three-wide moments going into Lisboa with Dani Juncadella and Felipe Nasr he braked later than his opponents – with rear brakes he was already struggling with – which left him with too much speed as he turned and he clattered the barriers. His race was over.

Daniel Ricciardo FR3.5 2011 Monaco
Distance: 100.200km

FR3.5 only held one race in its Monaco rounds, and that freed up Daniel Ricciardo to spend Thursday driving for Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) in F1 free practice.

When he hopped back into his usual car he was fastest in practice and qualifying, and that set up a lights-to-flag win. Brendon Hartley and Robert Wickens applied pressure through the first handful of laps, but Hartley started being more cautious and Wickens was saving his challenges for the end.

Two safety car interruptions kept Wickens on the tail of the leader, but strong corner exits for the leader meant there was nowhere around the circuit where Wickens could make a move. The result was Ricciardo’s second Monaco win, his fifth FR3.5 win and another point to take to Dr Helmut Marko to convince him he was already F1-worthy.

Sergio Perez GP2 2010 Monaco sprint race
Distance: 100.200km

Having brilliantly won the feature race the day before – his first win in the main GP2 series – Sergio Perez was therefore tasked with doing what he could from eighth on the grid in the sprint race. In one of the more chaotic Monaco races, Addax driver Perez kept his head cool to salvage a point.

Incidents for Scuderia Coloni’s Alberto Valerio and Racing Engineering’s Dani Clos, as well as a drive-through for Rapax’s Pastor Maldonado for jumping the start, allowed Perez to slide into the top six (and thus the points) despite being passed by Trident’s Cecotto.

At the end of the race, Perez was pressuring Rapax’s Luiz Razia while also holding off Arden’s Charles Pic. Up front, DAMS’ Jerome d’Ambrosio beat Addax’s Giedo van der Garde by a narrow margin, while ART Grand Prix’s Jules Bianchi made bold moves to take third on a track he would rise to stardom on four years later.

It was a rather incident-heavy race, with five drivers including Maldonado picking up penalties and seven of the 24 drivers not seeing the chequered flag.

Sebastian Vettel FR3.5 2007 Monaco
Distance: 83.500km

Photo: Renault Sport

Future two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel would have had a stronger chance to win on the streets in FR3.5 not long before his F1 call-up with BMW Sauber if not for a simple luck of the draw.

The qualifying groups that year were decided with a draw, and Carlin driver Vettel was placed in what was the group that appeared to have the slower track conditions.

Tech 1 Racing’s Alvaro Parente was the lucky man on the day and put it together to stick it on pole despite hitting the wall, and future FE racer Salvador Duran thought he was on pole but set his fastest lap while yellow flags were being waved.

Parente nailed the start and had to withstand pressure throughout the 25-lap race from Vettel, who was never more than 1.5s behind. Vettel had a moment on lap 15, cutting the Swimming Pool chicane, but kept the pressure on until the end.

Duran barged his way from fifth to take third after passing Milos Pavlovic at the start and inheriting the final podium spot after Clivio Piccione spun late on. Future F1 driver van der Garde rounded out the top five.

Lewis Hamilton GP2 2006 Hungaroring sprint race
Distance: 100.756km

Photo: GP2 Media Service

The Hungaroring sprint race was held in abysmal conditions shortly before F1’s first wet race at the circuit. Hamilton was in the midst of the toughest round of his GP2 season, while title rival Nelson Piquet Jr aimed to be first to complete a perfect weekend.

Giorgio Pantano spun off on the sighting lap for GP2 drivers, and the race began under the safety car. The cars were released on lap three, with Hamilton starting from 10th following a recovery from crashing in practice, spinning in qualifying (which put him last) and then using scintillating pace to rise to 10th despite a drive-through in the feature race.

Jose Maria Lopez spun off early in the sprint race after starting from pole, before Andre Negrao had a huge shunt that allowed Piquet and Hamilton to make up ground. Piquet also made crucial moves on E.J. Viso and Hamilton’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Alexandre Premat for second.

That became first when Racing Engineering’s Adam Carroll, who was leading, spun into the barriers. Piquet enjoyed a five-second lead over Premat, who did not make it easy for his team-mate to get by.

Piquet went on to complete the first GP2 perfect weekend – pole, both wins and both fastest laps – while Hamilton salvaged a second place from 10th on the grid and Premat completed the podium.

While the Hungaroring sprint race marginally exceeds the length of F1’s first sprint race, Hamilton did end the previous year with victory, pole and fastest lap in the 82.332km F3 Euro Series finale at Hockenheim.

Kimi Raikkonen FR Eurocup 2000 Spa-Francorchamps
Distance: 76.648km

Photo: Renault Sport

Kimi Raikkonen is synonymous with Spa-Francorchamps, so it’s only apt that he triumphed in a Formula Renault Eurocup outing in the Ardennes having already clinched the United Kingdom crown a month earlier.

Charles Zwolsman was on pole, but Manor Motorsport’s Raikkonen got by on the run down to Eau Rouge and simply sprinted off into the distance after that, opening up a lead of four seconds to a charging Matteo Grassotto, who started fifth.

Grassotto had to battle with Raikkonen’s future Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa to take third place before working his way past Zwolsman for second.

Such was Raikkonen’s pace in the race, he told Autosport at the time that “the first day was tough” when qualifying was held, but that “in the race, it was okay again, and I was able to back off to conserve my pace”. Another future F1 driver – one-off star Markus Winkelhock – finished sixth and Massa came home in eighth.

Fernando Alonso FOpen by Nissan 1999 Valencia Ricardo Tormo race 2
Distance: 100.125km

While Fernando Alonso clinched the Formula Open by Nissan title in the finale at Valencia in his most recent sprint race, there was controversy surrounding it.

The Campos Racing rookie worked his way past title rival Manuel Giao on lap two of the race to take second place behind future IndyCar racer Tomas Scheckter, but Scuderia Famo’s Giao felt the move was done under yellow flags.

Alonso undercut Scheckter in the pits to take the win and the title in the finale. Giao protested the overtake but to no avail, and he later appealed the decision.

Behind Alonso was series debutant (and race one winner) Scheckter, with Angel Burgueno rounding out the podium ahead of Giao.

*This article originally ommitted mention of IndyCar’s 2012 Iowa races, where qualifying and a knockout format combined for a final heat where the winner was awarded pole for the main race. The race had its own points format to reward its finishers rather than awarding a point for pole.

The post The last time each current F1 driver did ‘sprint qualifying’-distance races appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Formula Motorsport Limited

Theo Pourchaire is now the youngest ever winner of a Formula 2 race at 17 years old, but who else joins him in the pantheon of teenaged winners in Formula 1’s primary feeder and support series?

In the 55 seasons that a secondary tier of single-seater racing in Europe has existed with the primary focus of sending drivers to Formula 1, there has been surprisingly few teenaged winners of races.

There were actually teenagers racing in F1 prior to the creation of the European Formula 2 championship in 1967, and many of the ones that have reached the pinnacle of motorsport in the years since have gone on to great success.

At first European F2 actually catered for F1 drivers too, with the stars of the day flitting between the world championship and then racking up results (but by no means easily) against the rising stars of the day. In fact it was more popular initially to go to F1 first and then develop your abilities further in F2.

That championship lasted until 1984, when shrinking entry lists led to the series closing down and the FIA creating what would eventually be named International Formula 3000 to replace it in 1985. A similar fate befell that too, with F3000 being shut down in 2004 after several years of pressure from F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and GP2 – created in co-operation with Renault F1 team principal Flavio Briatore and Bruno Michel – launched in its place.

GP2 technically ran through to the end of 2017, with a rebrand to the F2 name for its final season before it actually became a new championship recognised by the FIA in 2018 and introduced the Dallara F2 2018 car it still races with today. That vehicle has ended up being driven by a lot of young prospects, several who feature on this list of the youngest ever to win in the history of F1’s primary feeder series.

This discludes GP2 Asia, where Sergio Perez and Luiz Razia won aged 19, and all non-championship races.

Not quite making the list but certainly making a mark on racing history are six drivers who all won in European F2/Int. F3000/GP2/F2 when they had yet to reach their 20th birthdays.

Doing that by just one day was elusive junior single-seater racing legend Mike Thackwell, who at the time of his first win in the second tier was already the youngest ever person to race in F1. His 1980 Canadian Grand Prix start took four years to follow up on, but between those appearances he established himself as a European F2 star. Thackwell’s first win came in the prestigious BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone that opened the 1981 season, and he won it as a factory Ralt driver.

Nine days younger when he took his first F2 win was fellow Antipodean Oscar Piastri, who triumphed on just his second start at Bahrain back in March.

Fizzling with teenaged promise but then failing to truly deliver on that in GP2 and F1 were Sergey Sirotkin and Esteban Gutierrez, while Javier Villa‘s name was briefly on F1’s lips after a breakthrough GP2 win at Magny-Cours in 2007 but his later career took him to roofed machinery.

Similarly, Rafaele Marciello drove superbly in the series and he won in his rookie season in 2014 but a combination of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and Ferrari politics meant he never had an F1 career and instead became a sportscar great and GT World Challenge Europe champion with Mercedes-Benz.

Tarso Marques BRAZIL 19 years, 8 months & 5 days
1995 Estoril

Best known for somehow beating Minardi team-mate Fernando Alonso in the 2001 F1 standings, Marques was one of many Brazilians to test their racing fortunes with European teams in the late 1990s with ambitious steps up the single-seater ladder.

In two years he went from the small cars of Formula Chevrolet Brazil to the F1-style Reynard-Cosworth of Int. F3000, with zero success outside of his home country before his upwards move, but actually embedded himself well in Europe.

That integration into a new racing environment brought him level with his more talented peers, and while his rookie F3000 season with Vortex Motorsport aged 18 was difficult he actually came an impressive 12th in the points with a fastest lap to his name and a fourth place at Magny-Cours.

Admittedly there wasn’t standout names finishing behind him, but neither was anyone expecting him to perform that well.

Marques moved to DAMS for his second season, and improved to fifth in the standings despite scoring in only three of eight rounds. He started the year with fastest lap at Silverstone, followed by a maiden podium at Barcelona and then a surprise pole in Pau.

That breakthrough lasted about 220 metres in the grand prix before a violent and painful crash with fellow front-row man and team-mate Guillaume Gomez. That dissapointment was followed by two more retirements, but Marques did rebound.

At Spa-Francorchamps he finished fifth, then he took pole by over half a second at Estoril. The race was his too, and the 19-year-old lapped all but the top eight as he drove to what would be his biggest and last single-seater win.

In 1996 he moved up to F1 briefly with Minardi, coming fourth in the final ever non-championship event, then returned to the Italian team in 1997 and 2001, with IndyCar spells in between. His next racing podium was a Stock Car Brasil win in 2006.

Sebastien Buemi SWITZERLAND 19 years, 7 months & 22 days
2008 Magny-Cours sprint race

It was fortitious, but ultimately it’s unlikely Buemi would ever have got to F1 was it not for his 21st to first charge at Magny-Cours halfway through a GP2 season where his driving was coming under scrutiny.

The Arden driver, who had basically a full season of GP2 experience after a half-season in 2007 and an early 2008 GP2 Asia campaign, already had two sprint race podiums to his name but both had come from starting near the front.

At Magny-Cours he qualified fifth but that became a penalised ninth on the grid, and used an undercut strategy in the feature race to try to get a strong result. That ended in retirement, and left him 21st on the sprint race grid.

A damp track from pre-race rain added an extra variable to allow Buemi to recover, and with nothing to lose he opted to start the race on slick tyres while many at the front started on the full wet compound.

The wet tyre runners made stronger starts, but a dry line emerged quick enough to send much of the front half of the field into the pits to change – perhaps too late. Others lost it on their own on a tricky track surface, or clattered into one another.

Buemi’s team-mate Yelmer Buurman also made the right tyre choice from the off, although he got to start considerably higher up the grid, while iSport’s Bruno Senna was charging up from 23rd place before he encountered technical issues.

The victory battle came down to a straight fight between Arden’s drivers once the pitstops had played out, and it took a whole lap of side-by-side action for Buemi to successfully pass Buurman. He pulled away at a second per lap after achieving that to take a 6.639s win, with the rest of the field over 20s behind.

Buemi won another sprint race in 2008, then got his F1 calling with a Toro Rosso team impressed by his technical ability.

Charles Leclerc MONACO 19 years, 6 months & 0 days
2017 Bahrain sprint race

Leclerc came back from a mid-race pitstop to win the sprint race at the abrasive Bahrain circuit in 2017, immediately marking himself out in F2.

He was one of four drivers to make a pitstop during the race, expertly using the medium compound Pirellis to build a lead of 9.4s before moving onto softs to attack for the final nine laps of the race and making 13 overtakes.

Luca Ghiotto and Oliver Rowland completed the podium, 1.5 and 2.8 seconds behind the winner, after both being passed in the final two laps of the race and not having the grip to compete for the win.

Leclerc started in sixth, a position which effectively became fifth when polesitter Nobuharu Matsushita was forced to start in the pitlane with pre-race mechanical issues, but had a superb launch to move up to third on the first lap of 23.

He then passed Alex Albon at Turn 4 on lap four after an early safety car period when Norman Nato spun off with a puncture. Leclerc overtook early leader Ghiotto on lap nine, and went on to build his lead before the sensational post-pitstop fight to the front to counter the issues he was having with tyre life which ruined his chances of a win in the feature.

Eddie Cheever USA 19 years, 5 months & 16 days
1977 Rouen-les-Essarts Grand Prix

Eddie Cheever in 1977

Ron Dennis’s Project Four Racing team had factory BMW engines, top chassis from Ralt and a line-up consisting of a baby faced Cheever and former Fittipaldi F1 driver Ingo Hoffmann in 1977.

Hoffmann’s experience had nothing against the sheer ability of Cheever, who came second in the Jochen Rindt Trophy race at Thruxton early in the season after a frantic podium battle and then really made his name known in the famous Eifelrennen on the full 20.83-kilometre Nordschleife.

Although he qualified down the order on the daunting track, he was far more confident in the race and made his way to second place within two laps. The driver he was chasing for the win was 30-year-old Jochen Mass, already an established F1 name with McLaren.

Mass’s experience made him a ‘graded’ driver ineligible for points, and according to reports at the time Cheever used a mature head and decided to just sit in Mass’s mirrors for the remaining seven laps of the race. Mass did open the gap towards the end though, suggesting he had as much in reserve as Cheever did, but it was Cheever who took the points for victory.

It wasn’t until four rounds later at the fast, flowing and equally scary Rouen circuit in France that Cheever took his actual first win, following another podium at Vallelunga, but it was with just as mature a display as he’d shown in Germany.

This time it was keeping a cool head while others crashed that sent Cheever up the order after another lowly qualifying.

The first corners of the track were all downhill and didn’t require braking, meaning there was little time for drivers to react when on the opening lap the frontrunners slowed and those behind concertinaed down the Rouen hill.

Rene Arnoux and Patrick Tambay crashed immediately, and Cheever timed his approach to not only get through the chaos safely but move up the order and into victory contention. Once in the lead he kept a steady pace, but at the same time pulled away while more of his rivals faltered.

After 38 laps he finished 7.6s clear of Trivellato Racing’s Riccardo Patrese and Ecurie Elf’s Didier Pironi to become the first ever teenager to win at this level of single-seater racing. Cheever ended up as title runner-up that year, and stayed in F2 for another two seasons before establishing his presence in F1 and later becoming an IndyCar race-winner and team boss.

Sergio Sette Camara BRAZIL 19 years, 3 months & 4 days
2017 Spa-Francorchamps sprint race

A fast start earned Sette Camara his first car racing win at Spa in 2017, as Leclerc came from 19th on the grid to finish fifth.

MP Motorsport driver Sette Camara ended Saturday’s feature race set for reversed grid pole for the sprint, but the exclusion of Leclerc and Oliver Rowland promoted him to sixth and put him third on the sprint race grid behind Nato and Roberto Merhi.

He almost immediately took the lead however, shooting between the top two after a superb getaway. Fellow second-row starter Nyck de Vries dived to the inside of Nato at La Source, and completed the move into Les Combes.

Sette Camara soon built a one-second margin over de Vries, and had doubled that before the safety car came out on lap 15 of 18 after a huge shunt for Nobuharu Matsushita at Raidillon.

The clean-up was almost completed in time for one final lap of racing, but Sette Camara ultimately did not have to worry about a restart. From the rear of the grid Leclerc got up to 14th on the first lap, was in eighth by lap six, and finished in fifth.

Liam Lawson NEW ZEALAND 19 years, 1 month & 16 days
2021 Bahrain sprint race 1

Lawson fended off fellow Red Bull junior Jehan Daruvala to win the opening reversed-grid race of the 2021 season at Bahrain.

He went from third to first on the run down to Turn 1 on the opening lap, passing reversed grid polesitter Theo Pourchaire and David Beckmann.

Lawson set the fastest lap on lap two to build an early race lead, while Pourchaire and Beckmann squabbled for second. Pourchaire emerged in front and he held that position until his ART Grand Prix-run car ground to a halt with 10 laps to go.

Daruvala dispatched Beckmann around the outside of Turn 4 at the halfway stage in the race and closed in on Lawson but couldn’t find a way past the Kiwi. In the proccess, Lawson became just the 13th driver ever to win on their first F2/F3000/GP2/F2 series start, after Jochen Rindt, Dave Morgan, Gerard Larrousse, Stefan Bellof, Johnny Herbert, Jordi Gene, Ricardo Rosset, Stephane Sarrazin, Heikki Kovalainen, Alvaro Parente, Charles Pic and Stoffel Vandoorne.

Fernando Alonso SPAIN 19 years, 0 months & 28 days
2000 Spa-Francorchamps

Alonso had already won six races and the title in Formula Open by Nissan in 1999, which would evolve into the GP2-rivalling Formula Renault 3.5 series, and so had already proven himself at this level when he moved to Int. F3000 for 2000.

He joined Belgian team Astromega, a proven outfit over the previous years, but his season didn’t get off to a strong start with a spin on the way to ninth in his first race at Imola, then a non-compliant engine mounting got him excluded from the next round at Silverstone after qualifying sixth.

After that was his home race at Barcelona, but on the second lap he collided with Sebastien Bourdais and spun down from 13th to 22nd, then in his recovery drive collided with Kristian Kolby and spun again, eventually finishing 15th.

A multi-car crash wiped him out on lap one at the Nurburgring, but he had reason to smile as two days later he was announced as a Minardi F1 test driver.

Next up on the calendar was Monaco. From 13th on the grid there he was never going to score highly, and he had his race compromised when Darren Manning crashed ahead of him. But he was consistently showing strong race pace, and high attrition led to an eighth place finish alongside taking the fastest lap.

At Magny-Cours he qualified third, and was then running fifth before a fuel pump failure sent him into retirement and down to 21st in the standings. Two weeks later at the A1 Ring (now the Red Bull Ring), he qualified 15th but charged up the order in the first half of the race and earned his first point in sixth place.

He hadn’t quite unlocked good luck yet though, with another retirement at Hockenheim meaning he was still 21st in the points with two races to go. The penultimate round was at the Hungaroring, and after qualifying third Alonso pressured Bruno Junqueira all the way for the win but came 0.595s short.

There was just one more chance for Alonso to break his victory duck, and he made the most of it. The Spaniard took pole for the Spa season finale, then dominated the race and took fastest lap to end the season fourth in the standings.

Christian Lundgaard DENMARK 18 years, 11 months & 20 days
2020 Red Bull Ring sprint race 2

After two rounds of the 2021 season, Alpine junior Lundgaard is yet to score the same amount of points as he earned with his first win in 2020, taking victory in the support race to the Styrian Grand Prix.

In the previous day’s rain-soaked feature race he had worked his way through the field before a mistake at Turn 6 blunted a potential podium charge.

He started the sprint race from third on the grid and passed ART Grand Prix team-mate Marcus Armstrong for second at Turn 1 on the opening lap. A virtual safety car period meant Lundgaard had to wait to race for the lead, but he wasted little time following the restart, and dived down the inside of polesitter Dan Ticktum at Turn 3 on the second lap after the restart.

FIA Formula 3 Championship graduate Lundgaard fired in two successive fastest laps to build an advantage over Ticktum in excess of the one second needed to escape DRS range. From then on he maintained a gap of around two seconds to win.

It was a particularly impressive display by the rookie as he has missed the pre-season test at Bahrain due to being in quarantine brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lockdown period limited his access to ART GP too to learn the car with a model of the new-for-2020 18-inch tyres on the team’s simulator. But over the opening two rounds at the Red Bull Ring he had the second best race pace behind Ticktum, and had a clear peak pace advantage over long runs.

Lando Norris ENGLAND 18 years, 4 months & 25 days
2018 Bahrain feature race

Standing in at the struggling Campos Racing team at the 2017 season finale meant when Norris lined up on pole for 2018’s first race he didn’t have the opportunity to become a winning debutant, but he did become the first to win in F2’s current car.

The Carlin driver dominated the Bahrain season opener, while Artem Markelov charged through to third from a pitlane start.

A stall on the warm-up lap for Markelov meant the Russian Time driver started from the pits, while Norris led the field away and pulled out a lead of nine seconds within the first nine laps.

A troublesome pitstop cut that lead down, but we built the advantage back up to 8.321 seconds by the chequered flag, with team-mate Sette Camara completing a Carlin one-two on the team’s series return.

He earned that spot after a spectacular late battle with Markelov who extended his first stint longer than anyone else, jumped up the order with the overcut strategy and then had a tyre life advantage late on.

While Norris broke the race-winner age record, sat at the top of the standings for half of the season and earned a McLaren F1 seat for 2019, he didn’t actually visit the podium’s top step again in F2 and lost the title to ART GP’s George Russell.

Theo Pourchaire FRANCE 17 years, 9 months & 2 days
2021 Monaco feature race

Formula Scout discussed with Pourchaire at the start of 2021 that he potentially had a record-breaking year ahead of him, but the French 17-year-old wasn’t particularly interested in the stats. That changed somewhat last weekend.

From pole he expertly controlled the Monaco feature race, only dropping out of the lead during the pitstop phase.

His only challenge for the win came early on when Robert Shwartzman put him under pressure, but it wasn’t long before Pourchire managed to shake off the Prema driver and extend a gap to the rest of the field.

That then extended further when a problem during Shwartzman’s pitstop dropped him out of contention for the lead.

The second half of the race was riddled with VSC periods, but Pourchaire edged out a gap while green flags were waved to finish 2.894s ahead of Prema’s Piastri.

“It was amazing, the race was so stressful because I was under pressure,” Pourchaire said after victory.

“Monaco is unique, you cannot make a mistake in Monaco, so I was so concentrated. We had the perfect race; I was fast in the second part of the race and we had a really good strategy.”

The feature race performance capped off a weekend that began with Pourchaire becoming the youngest ever polesitter not only in F1’s primary support series but the whole of single-seater racing’s second tier of competition. He beat the benchmark set by Alonso at Jarama during his title-winning FOpen by Nissan season by 17 days.

More classic GP2/F2
Kanonloppet 1973: The last time F2 held a three-race weekend
The F2 winners who started further back than Matsushita
Junior series in Monaco: From the sublime to the ridiculous
How to make the fastest junior single-seater in the world
Reliving the first ever GP2 weekend: Imola 2005
The strange story of the support series that supported itself
Top 10 GP2 drivers that F1 missed out on
Giacomo Ricci: The GP2 underdog leading F2’s dark horse

The post The youngest ever winners in F1’s primary feeder series appeared first on Formula Scout.

Recapping the junior careers of Formula 1’s 2022 grid, aided by photos of the drivers in their racing youth

MERCEDES-AMG

Lewis Hamilton was already a Formula 1 junior during his karting years, last millennium, and the support of McLaren took him from the international scene through to single-seaters in Formula Renault 2.0, Formula 3 and GP2. He started off in FR2.0 UK with Manor Motorsport and took his first win at Thruxton. He added another two wins during the season, but was more impressive in the Eurocup where he had the highest scoring rate of anyone in his part-season and was fifth in the points.

A second season resulted in a dominant UK title and the first F3 appearances for Hamilton, all with Manor, and in 2004 he was reunited with karting rival Nico Rosberg in the F3 Euro Series. It was the German who came out on top, but Hamilton ended the year with a rapid showing in the Macau Grand Prix and a stunning win in the Bahrain Superprix. A falling out followed with his McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh, who tore up Hamilton’s contract when he and his father pushed for a move up to GP2.

A few weeks later Hamilton re-signed with McLaren after agreeing to another year in F3. A switch to Frederic Vasseur’s ASM/ART Grand Prix operation resulted in back-to-back titles in the Euro Series and GP2, and despite some testing struggles on Michelin tyres he was promoted to a McLaren seat in F1 immediately after. The rest is history.

Noted for his maturity from a young age, it was still difficult for George Russell to get noticed by F1. Highly-rated in karting where he won back-to-back European titles, his first year in cars was split between BRDC British Formula 4 and FR2.0 abroad, and it was the former where he won his first title. But it was the latter where he more frequently raised eyebrows, especially when a change of teams resulted in a Eurocup win.

He was in European F3 the next year, winning his second race but claiming just two other podiums. His second season was better, and with a less experienced team, and while he was overpowered by Stroll in the title race, Mercedes recognised his  potential and signed him up. Working with F1’s top team unlocked a new level of performance, and Russell brushed off unreliability to become GP3 and F2 champion with ART. He then sweet-talked Williams into handing him an F1 seat.

SCUDERIA FERRARI

In the face of frequent tragedy, Charles Leclerc was a wanted talent in every series he raced in, guided by established F1 driver manager Nicolas Todt since a glittering karting career. It was Fortec Motorsports that won out to run him in FR2.0 Alps as a single-seater rookie, when he was the best driver bar veteran Nyck de Vries, even on wildcard appearances in a packed Eurocup field.

That earned him a move to FIA European F3 with Van Amersfoort Racing, where some early wins and displays of wet weather ability initially put him in title contention, and despite a lengthy podiumless run afterwards he was signed by the Ferrari Driver Academy. That preceded a GP3 move with ART, which resulted in the title, and he was the class of the Formula 2 field with Prema a year later despite his fair share of bad luck.

Carlos Sainz Jr arrived in single-seaters during Formula BMW Europe’s ultra-competitive final season in 2010, and his rookie crown raised the stakes for the Red Bull protege. What followed was initially just as slick, winning the FR Northern European Cup and finishing second in the Eurocup. On moving up to F3, he again demonstrated the talent he’d inherited from his world rally champion father with four wet-weather wins in the British series, but underwhelmed at other times.

Red Bull moved him to GP3, where he struggled badly, finishing 10th in the points when team-mate Daniil Kvyat won the title straight out of FR2.0. Confidence-boosting Formula Renault 3.5 cameos with Zeta Corse led to a full-time switch to the series with DAMS, and he dominated the 2014 season. His F1 chance only came however when Sebastian Vettel left Red Bull for Ferrari, leaving a vacant Toro Rosso space.

RED BULL RACING

There’s not much to say about Max Verstappen‘s junior single-seater career, beyond it redefining what was expected of young drivers of the present day. The World Karting champion debuted in America in the Ferrari Driver Academy-organised Florida Winter Series, where he was up against some of F3’s finest. He took fastest lap in his first race, was on pole for his third, and a winner by his sixth.

This put expectation on him for European F3 with VAR, having shunned debuting in FR2.0 instead, and he delivered. After winning six races in a row and Masters of F3 he became a Red Bull junior and then days later an F1 driver. Having come third in the European standings, he ended his single year in the junior ranks with seventh in Macau from the back of the grid after crashing out of the qualifying race.

It wasn’t until his fifth year in single-seaters that Sergio Perez took an overall win, having spent his formative years dabbling in A1GP and the secondary class of British F3 as well as the more regular entry-level series. In F3 he did win the title though, and he stuck with the underdog T-Sport team for a season in the primary class where he won a respectable four races, regularly leading the championship before fading late on.

Wins in his debut GP2 Asia campaign that followed was false promise for the main series he stepped up to with Christian Horner’s Arden team, but his sophomore season featured five wins and the title runner-up spot against some quality but inconsistent opposition, earning his F1 break with Sauber and some Ferrari ties.

McLAREN

No other driver this century has had as successful a start to a single-seater career than Lando Norris, with an incredible five titles in his first three seasons. Following a circuit-learning Ginetta Junior campaign alongside his world championship-winning final year in karts, Norris started off with the British F4 title, as well as successful cameos in the German and Italian series.

He used his backing to contest a total of 61 races the following year, winning the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand and then two FR2.0 titles in Europe, as well as four BRDC British F3 races in a part-season. In 2017 came his first role with McLaren and the European F3 crown – the first for Carlin after six years of Prema domination – and a sixth title just went amiss in his single year in F2.

Daniel Ricciardo raced in Australia, East Asia, Italy, the UK and across Europe for three years with little to show before a driver shootout propelled him into Red Bull’s books and top equipment. He started life as an F1 junior with the FR2.0 West European Cup title and a close second place to Bottas in the Eurocup, and followed it up with a romp to the British F3 title against an admittedly underpar field.

The step up to FR3.5 was therefore a truer test of his ability, and he came just two points short of title glory there too against series veteran Mikhail Aleshin. He returned to the series part-time the following year – winning the Monaco race for the second year in succession – working it around F1 practice outings before Red Bull found him a race seat at HRT.

ALPINE

Spotted by the late Adrian Campos in karts, Fernando Alonso was brought under his wing on a three-year plan. He debuted in FR3.5 predecessor Euro Open by Nissan in 1999 aged 17 and won on his debut weekend, adding five more wins and a title earned on dropped scores before moving to GP2 predecessor International Formula 3000.

Results were lacking at first, but Alonso jumped to fourth in the points with a first win in the final race at Spa. He was an F1 tester for Minardi too, and got a race seat there in his third year in single-seaters. He moved on to Renault with success, and returned there last year under its new name.

F1 had a close eye on Esteban Ocon from karting, when he was picked up by the Gravity management company tied to the Lotus team. His first year of car racing was actually way short of what was expected, but he picked up his game after that and succeeded a race-winning year in FR2.0 in 2013 with an era-defining European F3 title against Tom Blomqvist and Verstappen in 2014.

That crowning moment coincided with the tightening of belts by Lotus ownership, but Mercedes helped him into GP3 where he won another title, thanks this time to consistency more than speed. Then he was moved into the DTM for half a season prior to his F1 debut.

ALPHATAURI

Pierre Gasly raced only for French operations during his first three years in cars, which started with wins in French F4 that earned him some early attention from Red Bull. His rookie Eurocup season wasn’t enough to retain that initial support, but he somewhat unexpectedly won the title the following year, leading Red Bull to sign him outright to its junior team as he made the natural step up to FR3.5.

This marked the start of a lengthy winless spell. He was runner-up in FR3.5 with eight podiums, and took four podiums and three poles in GP2 a year later. Over 1000 days after his last victory, he escaped a road accident to win a GP2 race at Silverstone in 2016, and adding three more won him the title but not an F1 seat. Only an astonishing Super Formula campaign, in which only a typhoon denied him a shot at the title, was able to do that.

After tasting Japanese F4 in 2016, Yuki Tsunoda committed to the series in 2017 as well as contesting the more mechanically complex JAF Japan F4 series. He became grand champion in the latter, but also finished third in the FIA series. Focusing solely on Japanese F4 for 2018 lifted him further and he became Honda’s first champion.

Making the move to Europe, Tsunoda was placed in FIA F3 and Euroformula as a Red Bull junior for 2019, and his racecraft was brilliant in both. He won with a less-fancied team in FIA F3, and was rewarded with promotion to F2, where he surprised by fighting for the title and earning his 2021 F1 seat.

ASTON MARTIN

Like Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel is one of a rare few drivers that have been guided to F1 by a team all the way from karting. It was Red Bull who spotted Vettel’s talent, also very early in his career in the previous millennium, and he made the transition to cars locally in FBMW. It took him two attempts to dominate the ADAC championship, and he only found success in F3 once moving to ASM – by which point he was already an F1 test driver with BMW Sauber.

It was Vettel’s cameos that really caught in the eye in the lower formula, including Macau, Spanish F3 and FR3.5. In 2007 he was set for a full campaign in the latter, and was leading the championship with Carlin before he was plucked away into F1 with BMW Sauber and then Toro Rosso.

Lance Stroll won almost from the off in single-seaters and had Ferrari support from the off too, having been signed to its academy at the age of 11. His presence was almost certainly key to the creation of the Florida Winter Series and he showed well there before gliding to the Italian F4 title, where the combined might of Prema and Ferrari helped considerably with a brand new car.

Winning the TRS title a few months later, in similarly easy fashion, meant more of the same was expected in European F3. Against a talent-stacked field that was not the case as a rookie, especially when it came to his wheel-to-wheel form, which earned him plenty of critics after two significant crashes. He was still fifth in the points though, and he dominated his sophomore season while preparing with Williams to step up to F1. On the side, he also starred in a prototype in the Daytona 24 Hours.

ALFA ROMEO

Photo: ACI Sport

Valtteri Bottas had most of his junior series success with ART GP, as he won the Masters of F3 race twice and the GP3 title with the team. His early experience came in FR2.0 too, and he won Europe’s two biggest titles in 2008 with Motopark Academy, whose boss Timo Rumpfkeil orchestrated backing from Bottas’s future F1 chief Toto Wolff as well as Mika Hakkinen.

His second F3 season coincided with a shift in power from ART and Mercedes to Signature and Volkswagen, meaning he missed out on the Euro Series title. Hence the move to GP3, where he went from 10th in the points to champion after four wins in the final four rounds. Bottas’s F1 break didn’t come through a GP2 campaign, instead earning a promotion from test driver at Williams following a year out of racing.

China’s first F2 racer Zhou Guanyu benefited from Ferrari and Renault/Alpine backing prior to jumping into an Alfa Romeo seat this year alongside the team’s other new signign Bottas, and he’s entering F1 with one single-seater title to his name.

In 2021 he won the Formula Regional Asian Championship with Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema in between his second and third seasons in F2 with Virtuosi Racing. That title success earned him additional FIA superlicence points that were crucial for strengthening his bargaining hand in F1 silly season, and three wins in the first half of the F2 season helped him further.

His end position in the championship was third, an improvement on his previous two seasons, and also showing that he was able to be an equal to the more highly-touted drivers on the grid.

Prior to his F2 blossoming, Zhou claimed two wins from three years in European F3, was a TRS race-winner and perhaps most impressively was Italian F4 runner-up in his first full year racing cars.

HAAS

Efforts were made to hide Mick Schumacher‘s family connection early in his career to avoid media pressure, but his karting results, as well as Deutsche Vermögensberatung sponsorship, marked him out. VAR provided Schumacher with his first single-seater berth in F4, and winning in his first ever weekend suggested he would be one to watch. But the reversed-grid victory proved to be a false dawn for the rookie, and only found the pace and consistency needed in his second season.

That was the same in other series Schumacher entered: runner-up in ADAC and Italian F4, third in the MRF Challenge and winning the European F3 title in his sophomore season. Ferrari picked him up after that, and developed him over two years of F2 into an F1-worthy talent.

A late change means there’s no Nikita Mazepin alongside Schumacher, but instead Kevin Magnussen returns to the team after a year out racing in IMSA and IndyCar after he was replaced by Mazepin.

Magnussen followed a similar junior series path to his father Jan, also a former F1 driver, as he won the Danish Formula Ford title then after coming second in FR2.0 NEC went to race in F3. He was third in Germany as a rookie, then after some bad luck with engine issues was able to be runner-up to Felipe Nasr in the British championship in 2011 while also starring in European appearances.

He was a McLaren F1 junior by this point, and the team entered him into FR3.5 for his next step. A thought-provoking first season with Carlin, which did include a win, led him to working even harder and then obliterating the field through much of 2013 with DAMS. Those performances were enough to convince McLaren he was worthy of an F1 seat the next year.

WILLIAMS

Photo: Joe Portlock

A late start to karting, and a sideline in Porsches, are two of the oddities of Nicholas Latifi‘s pre-F1 path, and he has only got stronger with each category he has moved on to. He had an unconventional start in Italian F3, where he did win, then took the only poles of his racing career in British F3.

Seasons in European F3 and FR3.5 didn’t show signs of race-winning form, but upon making it to GP2 with DAMS he began to settle down. He finished second in his first race with the team, after imperious testing form, and finished fifth in the points in his second full season. Illness and a new car to learn held him back in 2018, but he did add another win and started the 2019 season on fire before his title campaign ran out of steam.

Despite a lack of titles, Alex Albon now has one of the most well-known paths to F1 in the modern era due to his early dropping by Red Bull and then invitation back to the brand in 2019 when it was in search of a driver to race for Toro Rosso.

The Thai started straight away in FR2.0, and a points-free Eurocup campaign led to him losing his Red Bull junior status. He still had enough money to race in the series, and on his return picked up a pole and four points finishes in 2013.

Another jump in performance put him third in the 2014 points, although he only had three podiums, and in the NEC he picked up his first car racing win. Joining a revived Signature team in European F3 was an inspired move for Albon’s next step, as he earned pole positions and podiums in a field stacked with future F1 talents.

There was no return for a title attack though, as he moved to GP3 with a plum ART GP seat and challenged Leclerc for the 2016 title. The team kept him for his move up to F2 the next year, but a training accident meant he missed a round and endured a difficult campaign. His budget was also not in place for a second season, and he did find a seat at DAMS for 2018 but only on a round-by-round basis. Three poles and a win in the first four rounds helped him secure a full-time berth, and the results he put in after then earned him a top Formula E seat with Nissan e.dams before Red Bull stole him for F1.

The post What the drivers of F1 2022 did first appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Yuki Tsunoda said testing an old Formula 3 car with McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris made him “wake up” before his maiden Formula 2 campaign.

The Red Bull junior secured his second podium of the season – following his run from pole position to second place in the second Red Bull Ring round – by utilising the alternative strategy in the Silverstone feature race last weekend.

Ahead of the delayed 2020 seasons, Carlin tested at Silverstone with its junior single-seater line-ups as well as the two McLaren drivers, who had both raced for Carlin prior to making it to F1. They joined Carlin’s tests in classic F3 cars as McLaren was unable to run its previous F1 cars as a result of changing power unit suppliers.

Tsunoda believes that the lessons learned from that test contributed to his podium at the same circuit.

“Of course it’s a different car,” he admitted. “It’s hard to learn about the car. I drove with Carlos and Lando, both drivers were fast, and it was really competitive in that test.

“I learned a lot on the driving side from Lando and Carlos, also that makes me wake up, I think. Also that made me [quick] in free practice in Austria, so 100 per cent the test Carlin did worked also at Silverstone for free practice.

“Maybe in qualifying, maybe not, as I did big huge mistakes, but also [it showed in the] race for the overtaking. We did a lot of overtaking practicing with Lando and Carlos so that was for me a big experience for this race.”

Following issues at Austria with the team radio that almost certainly cost Tsunoda his maiden victory, he and Carlin have changed their approach to communication during the race.

“After I changed from the prime tyre, I got really, really good information from my engineer that most of the drivers were struggling on the prime tyre, so I tried to be calm in the beginning and just push to the end. That works really good. If I don’t have that information, I think it was going to be a different result. But thanks to the engineer and to the team.

“I honestly don’t like much radio talk, to talk a lot with my engineer. Also, that made things difficult in Hungary as well.

“From this Silverstone [weekend] we tried to speak more, to have more information, it makes the race more easier if you have more information. That definitely works well more than in previous races, so I think from the next race I will talk a lot more and have more information.”

The post Test with McLaren F1 stars aided Tsunoda to latest F2 podium appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Francois Flamand / DPPI

The double win by David Vidales in his first Formula Renault Eurocup weekend at Imola is arguably the most impressive single-seater racing debut in recent history.

Three times a runner-up in CIK-FIA international karting events, the 18-year-old Spaniard has had to wait for his car racing break, having first tried out for the Ferrari Driver Academy in Formula 4 machinery four years ago.

Following a late switch to Formula Renault from the Formula Regional European Championship and missing the first round at Monza, Vidales grasped his opportunity at Imola, making the most of the quick package provided by JD Motorsport. Just as impressive as his speed was how he handled race starts, restarts and pace management under the pressure of a race weekend.

It got Formula Scout thinking about the best single-seater debut weekends this century, and we’ve picked out 10 of them below.

It’s difficult to find anybody besides Vidales who’s won in a proper Formula Renault championship (at the main two-litre level) in Europe on their first weekend in a single-seater: Ben Barnicoat won an Autumn Cup at Rockingham in 2013 in a field of of six cars, while Antonio Fuoco’s debut Formula Renault Alps win earlier that year was preceded by outings in the PanamGP Winter Series, just as Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll made their debuts in the Florida Winter Series a year later.

That proves how difficult Formula Renault has been for direct graduates of karting to get to grips with, and we begin our list with a driver that did at least come close to a debut win.

Jules Bianchi
French Formula Renault 2007 (Nogaro)

Photo: DPPI / Renault Sport

Spotted in karting by Nicolas Todt, a 17-year-old Bianchi was placed in Formula Renault 2.0 in his native France for his first season of single-seaters with the SG Formula team. In the first round at Nogaro, he couldn’t pick up a win, with both races going instead to the more experienced Matthieu Arzeno. But Bianchi missed pole for the first race by less than a tenth of a second, then finished just over a second adrift of Arzeno in race one, and seven seconds clear of third-placed Tristan Vautier. In race two he finished third and set the fastest lap. Bianchi then dominated the following round at Ledenon to take a championship lead he wouldn’t surrender.

Incidentally, his second and third places on debut were a repeat of what Edoardo Mortara had achieved in the possibly more-competitive Italian championship at Mugello a year earlier. When Bianchi stepped up to the F3 Euro Series for 2008, Mortara edged Bianchi by by 2.5 points to be championship runner-up behind Nico Hulkenberg.

Nico Hulkenberg
Formula BMW ADAC 2005 (Hockenheim)

Photo: BMW AG

He’s stepped away from Formula 1 with the unwanted record of the most starts without a podium finish, but Hulkenberg still possesses one of the most impressive junior single-seater records of the 21st century. His reputation was one built not only through his A1 Grand Prix, Euro F3 and GP2 titles, but also by winning the Formula BMW series in Germany as a rookie.

Over the season, Josef Kaufmann Racing’s Hulkenberg was pushed closely by Mucke Motorsport’s second-year Red Bull junior Sebastien Buemi – with just five points between them at season’s end. But Hulkenberg had made the better start as a single-seater novice in round one at Hockenheim. He won the first race from pole position ahead of Buemi, then claimed race two from second on the grid, setting the fastest lap as he finished four seconds clear of his future F1 team-mate Sergio Perez.

Marcus Ericsson
Formula BMW UK 2007 (Brands Hatch)

Photo: ChristianB_7

Ericsson might have got some stick as an F1 driver, but he had begun his single-seater debut as a very serious prospect indeed. As a karter in his native Sweden, he picked up backing from Indianapolis 500 winner Kenny Brack, who secured Ericsson a drive in Formula BMW UK with Fortec Motorsports for 2007. Ericsson’s aim was to try to win by the end of the season, but after finishing third in the first race at Brands Hatch, he qualified on pole for race two and won it by some five seconds despite losing the lead to Henry Surtees at the start.

Brack might have been a little biased, but he described Ericsson as “the best young talent” he had ever seen. Over the rest of the year, his protege lived up to that, defeating Josef Kral to win the championship with a spate of late victories. The two rivals would be reunited as GP2 team-mates just a couple of years later.

Richard Bradley
Formula BMW Pacific 2010 (Sepang)

Photo: BMW AG

Asia’s Formula BMW equivalent might not have been as prestigious as its European counterparts, and Bradley never even got close to F1, but two of the drivers he beat convincingly on his single-seater debut certainly did. After Red Bull signed Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat to its junior team for an assault on FBMW Europe with Eurointernational in 2010, it took them along to the Malaysian Grand Prix in April for a bit of early practice.

The two young bulls must have fancied their chances of a win on their car racing debuts, but so clearly did British karter Bradley, who had headed east and picked up a racing licence from Singapore for his step into single-seaters with Eurasia Motorsport. The 18-year-old beat Sainz to pole position by nearly half a second and then opened up a four-second advantage during the 10-lap race, setting the fastest lap in the process. It was a similar story in race two, with Sainz actually slipping to fourth place at the end and finishing just ahead of Kvyat.

Sainz and Kvyat returned to Sepang for revenge a month later, splitting the wins between them in a quadruple-header, but Bradley also went on to defeat Sainz once more for a win on his adopted streets of Singapore. He also claimed the championship – ahead of 14-year-old Oscar Tunjo – and later raced in Super Formula in 2013 before forging a successful sportscar career.

Raffaele Marciello
Italian Formula Abarth 2010 (Misano)

Where Sainz and Kvyat had failed, their former karting rival Marciello succeeded later the same month in his native Italy with the support of the newly-expanded Ferrari Driver Academy. Just like Vidales, Marciello started his car racing career with JD Motorsport, in this case in the new Formula Abarth series.

In a wet qualifying session at Misano, 15-year-old Marciello had been beaten to pole position by Kevin Gilardoni by over two seconds, but in the race, he reeled in his rival and stole the win away on the very last lap. The pair were 25 seconds clear of the driver in third. Third in race two, Marciello would win just once more all season and finished third in the standings, while fellow FDA recruit Brandon Maisano – two years older – took the title.

Marciello’s single win was bettered by Alessio Rovera’s debut double in 2013 en route to the title, but the series was by then a shadow of its former self with Formula 4 on the horizon.

Matheo Tuscher
Formula Pilota China 2011 (Guangdong)

A year after its introduction in Italy, a Formula Abarth series was created for Asia and Swiss driver Tuscher dominated it aged just 14. His competition over the season wasn’t the strongest – runner-up Luis Sa Silva had plenty of prior experience in Asian Formula Renault, but would struggle when he later headed to Europe.

But on his debut weekend in a single-seater at Guandong in July, Tuscher had to see off some serious opposition to win both races: Future DTM ace Lucas Auer had already made a winning start in the rival FBMW-based JK Racing Asia Series, and Jenzer Motorsport team-mate Robert Visoiu was already a race-winner in the Italian Abarth series.

But Tuscher won both races, leading home Visoiu in race one and Auer in race two. He won six of the subsequent 10 races on his way to the title, and then turned up in Jonathan Palmer’s Formula Two in 2012 and claimed pole on his Silverstone debut, eventually finishing second in the standings. After stints in GP3 with Jenzer and Rebellion’s LMP1 squad, he hasn’t raced since celebrating his 20th birthday at the end of 2016.

Anthoine Hubert
French Formula 4 2013 (Le Mans)

Debut winners are more common in French F4 than in rival series within Europe, with the FFSA Academy welcoming a largely new crop of drivers each season. Last year, Hadrien David won twice at the first round – though not before he’d taken three wins from four races on his actual single-seater debut in the South East Asia F4 series. Six years earlier, Hubert had similarly lived up to his billing as pre-season favourite after the karting career in which he’d been a close rival of Charles Leclerc.

With the first round taking place at the championship’s home circuit Le Mans, and most drivers therefore knowing the track relatively well, Hubert was actually beaten in qualifying by Russian driver Kirill Karpov. On second-fastest times he still lined up on pole for the first race and finished seven seconds up the road from Karpov. He went from 10th to fifth in the reversed-grid race two, then triumphed again in race three ahead of Jules Gounon – who would become his closest rival. But Hubert followed Le Mans with another double win in Pau and a stunning hat-trick at Spa-Francorchamps and won the title convincingly.

Giuliano Alesi
French Formula 4 2015 (Ledenon)

Photo: KSP – Guillaume Veuve

With only a modest karting record to his name, Alesi’s double win on debut in French F4 was rather more surprising than Hubert’s – and it still is looking back on it today. But the statistics were even more impressive, beginning with Alesi topping qualifying before winning the first race by a margin of five seconds ahead of eventual champion and talented second-year driver Valentin Moineault. As well as father Jean, Alesi was congratulated afterwards by Alain Prost, who handed him his winning trophy on the podium. Contact at the start forced him to retire from race two, but he won from the front again in race three, this time in a red-flagged wet race.

The wins would prove a false dawn for Alesi, who scored just one further victory all year and finished fourth in the standings – results that didn’t exactly justify the leap up he made to GP3 for 2016. The season’s stand-out rookie would instead be the driver who won that second race at Ledenon, a relatively unknown Sacha Fenestraz.

Lando Norris
MSA Formula 2015 (Brands Hatch)

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

As the world karting champion, Norris’s single-seater debut in the first ever MSA Formula (later British F4) event was highly anticipated. With the benefit of a comprehensive testing programme in both Formula Renaults and Carlin’s new Mygale F4 car, the 15-year-old lived up to expectation with two victories at Brands Hatch. In qualifying though, he was upstaged by relatively unheralded JTR driver Dan Baybutt, who was a whole three tenths of a second quicker around the short Indy layout in damp conditions.

Normal order was restored in the race, with Norris grabbing the lead at the start and then resisting mid-race pressure from Matheus Leist, who ultimately lost second to another single-seater debutant Dan Ticktum. While Ticktum charged from seventh to second in race two, Norris actually slipped from eighth to ninth – quiet reversed-grid encounters would become a feature of his run to the title as he saved new tyres for the other races. In race three, he lost the lead at the start to James Pull, but regained it to take his second win.

Thereafter, Norris’s run to the title was almost a little underwhelming relative to the hype – and factoring in his circuit knowledge from Ginetta Juniors – but it didn’t him take long to disprove any doubts.

Francesco Pizzi
Formula 4 UAE 2020 (Dubai)

Over the years, ‘winter’ series have been a popular place for drivers to make their first race starts in single-seaters, whether it’s a cold and wet November day at Snetterton or in warmer climes. Today, series like F4 UAE give drivers the chance to get a proper championship title under their belt – a chance taken in full by Pizzi at the start of this year. The grid for the opening round in Dubai in January might not have included many star names, but some drivers did have prior F4 experience and so Pizzi’s hat-trick with Xcel Motorsport was impressive.

None of his wins actually come from pole position, as he was beaten by Hamda Al Qubaisi in qualifying, and he twice inherited leads after mistakes or contact for others. But even the unforseen cancellation of race four due to rain didn’t wipe the shine off his debut, and he continued to prove himself on the way to the title.

Pizzi’s performances convinced Van Amersfoort Racing to sign him for Italian F4, and he will start among the favourites when the season finally begins at Misano this weekend. But look out for another young Italian potentially winning on his single-seater debut, with karting hotshot Gabriele Mini one of four car racing newcomers fielded by Prema.

Legends who won first time out

By Elliot Wood

Single-seaters wasn’t most drivers’ entry into car racing until the creation of Formula Ford, a deliberately affordable formula that could be repeated across the globe, which meant a lot of drivers before 1968 had experience in sports or touring cars before trying out open-wheel racing.

There were some pretty high-profile examples, with 1961 Formula 1 world champion Phill Hill counting a lapped seventh place in the 1958 French Grand Prix as his single-seater debut. Two years prior, Innes Ireland had got the call up from Team Lotus to race in the Dutch GP and the sportscar star finished fourth.

It was a similar story in America, where the drag and midget racing scene was highly competitive and the very best of those drivers would then move straight into IndyCar. Pat Flaherty and Rodger Ward, who both won the Indianapolis 500 when it was part of the F1 calendar, claimed top 10 finishes on their single-seater debuts in IndyCar.

There were some exceptions to this trend, most notably British racing knights Stirling Moss and Jackie Stewart. Moss (pictured above) entered two hillclimbs in 1948 before winning his heat and the final in the 500cc Formula 3 round at the Brough airfield circuit. Stewart matched that feat in a BARC British F3 race at Snetterton in 1964.

Perhaps more impressive than them was Emerson Fittipaldi, who won his first Formula Vee race in Brazil in one of his family’s Fittipaldi chassis. The Fittipaldi clan’s feats inspired later generations of talent in the country, and Rubens Barrichello became a star to watch after winning the 1989 Brazilian FFord season opener.

In Canada there were similar parallels, with Gilles Villeneuve wiping the floor in his rookie Quebec FFord season in 1973 and then Paul Tracy doing the same in the national championship in 1985.

The final year of the 20th century provided two drivers who were almost immediately courted by F1.

Spanish karting star Fernando Alonso, who like Vidales now was 18 at the time, chose the Euro Open by Nissan series for his debut season in single-seaters. The series would later be known as FR3.5 and Formula V8 3.5, and Alonso’s arrival in the then-Nissan-powered category certainly raised its profile.

The first round of the season was at Albacete in Spain, the location of the test that earned Alonso a seat with Campos Racing (which has a watchful eye on Vidales now). He was beaten to pole for his first ever race by just 0.046 seconds, and while he didn’t complete that race, he responded later that day with a dominant 10.556s success from fourth on the grid. Five more wins that season earned him the title, and he was racing in F1 by 2001.

Anthony Davidson had a longer route to the pinnacle of single-seaters, but was just as impactful. The Briton started his career off in FFord and won his first six races from pole. Class victory in his first FFord Festival appearance was followed by overall victory in his second, and he was soon signed by British American Racing.

He was placed in various F1 test and development roles with the team – as well as being loaned to Minardi for two F1 races in 2002 – through to its Honda take-over in 2006. The next year, he was finally given a full-time race seat in Honda’s B team Super Aguri, but after 21 races and no points, the operation folded and Davidson returned to test and simulator duties as well as embarking on a successful sportscar career. His first F1 chance came at the expense of Justin Wilson, who also won on his single-seater debut in the Formula Vauxhall Junior Winter Series in 1994.

The post Ten of the best junior single-seater racing debuts appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Carl Bingham / LAT Images / FIA F2 Championship

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Photo: Lando Norris

After McLaren Formula 1 drivers Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris returned to Carlin Formula 3 cars for some post-lockdown testing, we look back at their best drives in the category

McLaren duo Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris tested Formula 3 cars with Carlin at Silverstone on Thursday and Friday as they try to prepare for the delayed start to the Formula 1 season.

With McLaren unable to run older F1 machinery like many of its rivals due to a lack of Honda engine supply, their drivers turned to their former team Carlin to get back on track, with Norris driving one of its classic Dallara F3 chassis at Silverstone earlier this month before being joined by Sainz this week.

They weren’t alone, with F1 rookie Nicholas Latifi trying out the brand new Dallara 320 alongside with current Euroformula driver Zane Maloney, while F2 racer Yuki Tsunoda also stepped back to an F3 car.

Sainz and Norris both spent a season racing a Carlin F312 car on their way to F1. Sainz, then a 17-year-old Red Bull junior, didn’t have the best of years in 2012 across the British and European series, but some standout drives demonstrated his talent. Norris (who was also 17 at the time) on the other hand stormed to the European title in 2017. These were some of their most memorable performances.

Sainz at Monza

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool

Sainz’s breakthrough in an F3 car came in the second round of the British series at Monza on a rain-soaked April weekend.

In the first race, the rain fell just before the start, forcing everyone into the pits for wet tyres. Carlin got Sainz back out on track in the lead and he cruised to the win by nearly 10 seconds.

In the third race, Sainz led from the front after a safety car start and was even more dominant, opening up a lead of over 16 seconds over Felix Serralles. Wet weather would prove to be Sainz’s domain in an F3 car…

Norris at Pau

Norris began his European F3 campaign with a home victory at Silverstone and another win at Monza, but it was perhaps round three on the streets of Pau that really highlighted Norris’ talent once and for all, even though he didn’t come away with a win.

On his first visit to Pau, Norris chased Joel Eriksson home in the first race, but then starred in second qualifying, where he was half a second quicker than Callum Ilott and claimed a double pole position for the two remaining races.

Slow getaways blighted the first half of Norris’ F3 campaign and forced him to chase Maximilian Gunther home in race two, but he made a good start to the Pau Grand Prix itself in race three. He seemed in control and on his way to winning one of junior single-seater racing’s most prestigious races when his front-left suspension broke in the Foch chicane, causing him to crash out.

Sainz at Hockenheim

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool

Two weeks after his Monza wins, the F3 Euro Series began at Hockenheim and Sainz laid down a marker, claiming a double pole position in qualifying. He was more than a quarter of a second ahead of series veterans Daniel Juncadella and Felix Rosenqvist.

He couldn’t convert either pole position into a victory. In race one he was passed by Rosenqvist and Juncadella early on, but did re-pass Rosenqvist for second before the end. A bad start in race three dropped him to third, but Sainz again passed Rosenqvist on the road and this time chased down his fellow Spaniard in the closing stages, finishing just 0.7 seconds adrift.

Such a performance would prove to be a false dawn though, as Sainz failed to finish on a Euro Series podium again all year.

Norris at the Norisring

Norris winning on the Nuremberg street circuit was a headline-writer’s dream, and he could have truly owned the Norisring that weekend had he not collided with Jake Hughes late in the first race.

He made up for his mistake by charging from fourth to win race two, passing Gunther and Hughes before charging down the leader Ralf Aron.

With three minutes left on the clock, Norris tried to go around the outside of Aron through the chicane in the middle of the lap, and although he had to back out of it, he still got a run into the next hairpin to seal the place and the victory.

Sainz at Spa

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool

British F3 took more British weather with it on another of its overseas trips in 2012, and it again played into the hands of Sainz: all four of his outright F3 wins came in the rain, where the car control he either inherited or learned from his father seemed to come to the fore.

After 32-degree heat in the first race at Spa, thunderstorms forced the cancellation of race two. Race three went ahead in the wet and Sainz was dominant once again. Even though a safety car reduced his lead, he finished five seconds clear of his fellow son-of-a-rally-champion Tom Blomqvist in a weekend that featured the majority of the Euro Series runners as part of the revived FIA European Championship.

Norris at Spa

Norris experienced a dry weekend at Spa in 2017 but it wasn’t without drama. In qualifying he claimed pole for all three races, and took a lights-to-flag win in race one in a weekend where he finally sorted his bad starts.

In race two though he still got shuffled backwards on the run to Les Combes, and a collision under braking with Guanyu Zhou copped him a grid penalty that forced him to start race three in fourth.

He recovered from that perfectly though, getting past Gunther for second on lap two and taking the lead away from Zhou on a safety car restart. It proved to be a pivotal race in the title fight, as Gunther lost most of his points lead when he crashed with Hughes.

Sainz at Snetterton

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Sainz’s final display of wet-weather brilliance came at a rather less iconic location than Monza or Spa, but the chance to dominate on a grim day at Snetterton was at least part of the appeal of British F3, right?

A week on from Spa, Sainz shone when a rain shower hit Norfolk just before the final race of the weekend. It had rained for race one too, but Sainz got taken out at the start, depriving him of running in those conditions.

It didn’t bother him one bit, as he got the jump on polesitter Jack Harvey at the start and tore off to a 12-second winning margin on a drying track.

Norris at the Nurburgring

Wet weather also brought perhaps the single most impressive performance of Norris’ F3 campaign at the Nurburgring.

At the time, Formula Scout remarked that his dominant qualifying showing was reminiscent of Max Verstappen’s in similar conditions at the same circuit some three years earlier.

Norris was 0.907 seconds quicker than his closest rival Hughes and was in similar form in the wet opening race, which he finished 17.562 seconds clear. Another win in a dry third race gave him his third double on the trot and one hand on the title.

The post Sainz and Norris in Formula 3: Their best drives appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Carlin

McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris tested a Dallara Formula 3 car at Silverstone today as preparation for a return to racing.

The 20-year-old was ran in the test by Carlin, which he raced for throughout his junior single-seater career. He claimed the 2015 British Formula 4 and 2017 FIA European F3 titles with the team, and also won races in BRDC British F3 and Formula 2.

It was the first time Norris had driven a single-seater at speed in the real world since F1 pre-season testing in February, and also the first time junior single-seater powerhouse Carlin had been out testing in the United Kingdom since the start of the coronavirus-caused national lockdown.

To work on his neck muscles prior to getting back into an F1 car, Norris also intends to spend time in a kart just as many of his F1 and IndyCar contemporaries have. Red Bull Racing’s Alex Albon is another planning to test an old F3 car before the first grand prix of the year in July, and Williams’ George Russell is also considering a test drive in a junior single-seater car.

In addition to Norris, Carlin was also doing testing for its various race programmes at Silverstone. It shook down two of its new halo-shod Dallara 320 chassis for the upcoming Euroformula season, with reigning British F4 champion and 2020 signing Zane Maloney at the wheel, and had its Dallara P217 prototype sportscar and BRDC British F3 cars on track.

Silverstone is owned by the British Racing Drivers’ Club, while many of the other major British circuits are owned by Jonathan Palmer’s MotorSport Vision organisation. Private tests that observe social distancing guidelines (as shown below) are able to take place at present, with racing set to return in July.

The post Norris prepares for F1 return with F3 test at Silverstone appeared first on Formula Scout.

The Indian was the fastest throughout the event, starting with pole over April rival Ramez Azzam by 0.04 seconds. Less than 0.2s covered the top eight, which was completed by Formula 1 driver Lando Norris.

Due to the size of the entry list, the field was split into two heat races and Ibrahim was put up against Red Bull junior Liam Lawson and Nico Varrone in his five-lap heat.

Lawson could rival Ibrahim on race pace but made a mid-race error that lost him several places, and left BRDC British Formula 3 graduates Varrone and Johnathan Hoggard rounding out the podium. USF2000 Winterfest race-winner Michael Epps and former FIA Formula Two driver Ramon Pineiro were fourth and fifth.

Karter Ollie Bearman ended his race early after bumpdrafting a rival, joining several drivers having to enter the consolation race to make it through to the points-scoring feature encounter.

Azzam started heat two on pole, and also had a lights-to-flag win. Macau Grand Prix winner Richard Verschoor did briefly get past at the chicane on the first lap, but carried too much speed and immediately fell down the order after claiming the lead.

Norris looked to be Azzam’s closest rival until slowing mid-race, and Indy Pro 2000 racer Phillippe Denes claimed the runner-up spot ahead of Formula Renault Eurocup racer Victor Martins, Formula E star Oliver Rowland, Ginetta racer Josh Malin, Verschoor, Euroformula champion Felipe Drugovich, ex-British F3 racers Cameron Das and James Pull, and the unfortunate Norris.

Incidents wiped out most of the Consolation Race field, which ended with 10 finishers. The top five of those, led by Bart Horsten, made it through to the feature race.

Like in the heat, it was a case of domination for Ibrahim again in the longer feature race. His lead never grew very large, but he routinely set fastest laps and was never close enough for Varrone (complaining of early understeer) and Azzam in second and third to attempt an overtake.

Epps and Rowland rose up to finish fourth and fifth after Denes was speared into the barriers on the opening lap, with Drugovich right on their tail at the end of the race.

Hoggard started ahead, but struggled with his car and following a tap from Lawson he had his race ruined when he was collected at speed by Malin.

Lawson, Martins and IMSA star Tristan Nunez continued a thrilling scrap behind Drugovich, until Martins became one of many to be caught out by the Outer Loop right-hander after the chicane, and then Nunez too span to leave Lawson a lonely seventh.

A defensive drive earned Pineiro eighth over junior karter Kasper Sztuka, Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Final runner-up Sandy Mitchell and IMSA’s Harry Tincknell.

Bearman rose all the way up to 12th from the back of the grid, while Norris’s race ended on lap two.

The post Muhammad Ibrahim dominates Dallara F3 Esports at Watkins Glen appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: McLaren

Three of the most exciting young drivers of the last few years have returned McLaren to the front in IndyCar. It may only be in Esports, but, as the trio explain, that winning form could soon be seen in the real world too

The combined age of McLaren Schmidt Peterson’s three-car line-up for the 175-mile IndyCar iRacing Challenge race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on iRacing was 63 years old. Between them they already had eight single-seater titles, 86 wins and 83 poles.

On lap 68 of 70, those three cars were leading the race, and it was not by chance. Formula 1 star Lando Norris was at the front towing along reigning Indy Lights champion Oliver Askew, with fellow champion Patricio O’Ward just behind.

“It felt really cool [leading]. I was super excited, I was like ‘come on guys, lets just keep it 1-2-3’, and I was cruising at the back trying to block the guys in the pack so they wouldn’t get in the middle of us,” O’Ward told Formula Scout.

“Before that I was in the pack, trying to stay out of trouble. But whenever it came to hammer time I was passing people, being aggressive. I was going to go for the win on the last lap. It was cool to race with my team-mates first, 1-2-3 with five laps to go. But then Simon Pagenaud took out Lando, and just me and Oliver were battling it out [so] people caught up.”

The deliberate elimination of Norris broke McLaren’s defensive plan, but they were still on for victory until further chaos.

“Our strategies were very similar, and I think we had the best strategy – as you could tell at the end of the race – compared to other cars,” added Askew. “It was a matter of us being smart and realising we were 1-2-3, and thinking about how big this is for the team rather than just us drivers trying to win the race [for ourselves]. It was best for us to not be so selfish.

“It would have been very easy for us to finish one-two at least, so, once [Norris’s crash] happened, cars behind us had a shot at finishing on the podium.”

How Norris’s victory hopes ended

First of those was Marcus Ericsson, who’d left SPM for Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of 2019. O’Ward picks up the story.

“Marcus came, we gave Marcus room, and whenever I dove in to pass him back he didn’t give me room, but there was plenty of space for him to. I know you can’t do that [move] at Turn 4 in real life, but in iRacing you can and it will be just fine. You can even go three-wide and no one will crash if you maintain your line. My wing was there, and it was the last lap. Who in the world is going to release the throttle. [If you do] you’re not going to win. I said: you know what, either I win or I put myself in the wall.”

Askew took back the lead until the final seconds, when he was punted by Santino Ferrucci and finished the race several feet up in the air and in fourth place. O’Ward was a few tenths behind in fifth, while Norris finished a lap down in 21st place.

“The drivers, sponsors, teams, strategists and the personnel have all been taking it very seriously. This is way more than [a game]. There’s still a lot of money involved, and for someone to go in and act so carelessly and so selfishly towards this format is very disrespectful towards us drivers, the teams, sponsors and IndyCar,” was Askew’s response to Ferrucci’s move.

That’s the controversial end to IndyCar’s Esports finale out of the way, now down to why McLaren SP is on for real success.

Team boss Sam Schmidt, whose SPM team merged with F1 team McLaren over winter, is the man most likely to know why.

“Everybody has a lot of self-motivation here, including the drivers. These two kids are outstanding talents,” said Schmidt. “In bringing on McLaren and merging that whole situation, we have to bring their technical support up to speed. It’s probably going to take six months to start seeing any benefit from that. [Overall] …there is a lot of processes to be set up.”

That F1 incorporation included Norris’s 2019 engineer Andrew Jarvis, who was initially set to join the American side for the now delayed Month of May but reunited with the Briton when he joined the IndyCar Challenge at Circuit of the Americas (and won). There are some hires from IndyCar rivals, as well as the F1 colleagues who failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 last year in a solo effort driven by Fernando Alonso and will no doubt find the Esports races, even through observation, useful in Schmidt’s target for them to get “up to speed” on both American racing and the new F1-mirroring personnel layout.

“So far, communication, effort, and willingness to work together has been very positive. When you put it all together, you can’t be ignorant of the fact that there are some outstanding teams and some really good drivers that we’ll be facing [on track].”

O’Ward and Askew, both new to simulator racing, confirmed the immersion of the team in the online racing event.

“We had race engineers [Will Anderson and Blair Perschbacher] and performance engineers, and the data analysts. Five or six people working on all kinds of data and strategy,” said O’Ward.

Askew, new to the scale of an IndyCar outfit, found it very beneficial: “It’s [about] getting used to working with the guys. It’s different for those who’ve been doing this for a while, [for them] it might just turn into an exercise, but for me it’s been really vital to get the most out of it.”

Alonso is the only of McLaren SP’s Indy 500 line-up this year with experience of the race, and so the strategy work in Esports will undoubtedly prove useful for all involved. And unlike McLaren’s last ambitious but ill-fated partnership, a Honda F1 engine supply that began in 2015 and only lasted three years, communication seems to be going fine.

While it is ‘just’ a simulation, the fact that McLaren SP is already rivalling Team Penske for nailing race management is a good sign. As for whether the speed is relatable too, Norris is an iRacing expert and many IndyCar drivers have pointed out the stark difference in the fixed set-up physics model for the Dallara IR18 (with aeroscreen) and its Firestone tyres, and the real thing. A tweak to in-game air temperature also meant wind at Indy was minimal, distancing the handling realism that little bit further.

Norris led O’Ward in a one-two on his COTA debut, despite a spin, and his arrival helped his team-mates understand the set-up intricacies of simulators. This was an under-the-radar landmark moment; O’Ward is not shy in admitting his cautions about simulator use, even when facing new circuits and equipped with a multi-million pound F1-level rig rather than a home setup. After all, Red Bull put him in a real F1 car rather than the sim last year to decide if they wanted him as a junior, and McLaren is undeniably taking a huge risk in starting its brave new partnership with a line-up that has accumulated nine IndyCar starts.

Having that extra understanding of simulators, aided also by a full day in Woking’s high-spec rig, will prove valuable in a broader sense back in the McLaren SP factory – and the second technical group over in the UK – for the rest of 2020.

“We have the personnel, the data and the software to be able to correlate the car to the simulator at Chevrolet’s [motion rig] in North Carolina,” explained Askew. “And we have seen that, even in pre-season, being able to correlate to the real-life car and then back to the simulator. It’s opened the eyes of our data and performance engineers.”

Askew was seventh in the pre-season COTA test and gained mileage at the Texas oval due to being a rookie, while O’Ward was 10th at COTA and Sebring. Despite cold weather shortening track time, both were pleased. The COTA runs were “a really, really good sign for what’s to come” according to Askew, and O’Ward was “finally feeling ‘in it'” on qualifying and race stints there.

The only McLaren driver to top the times at COTA, virtually at least, was IndyCar rookie Norris. He took Esports pole by 0.396 seconds, then beat a “proud” O’Ward to victory by 1.445s. At Indy he was 0.007s (0.04mph) off pole, and led 12 laps before his crash with Penske’s Pagenaud. That form came despite no oval experience, meaning he learned to read the grip change on ageing tyres and how much to lift over a stint, and the risks of pack racing, in the days before. While he is one of the best on iRacing, his home setup has been custom built to be as realistic and applicable to a high-downforce single-seater as possible.

“Do you know how many hours I’ve spent doing this?” said a frustrated Norris after finishing the Indy race. “24 hours in total I reckon I must have spent driving in a straight line and turning left, and trying to perfect it.”

“With the most delicate touch. I’ve tried doing it one handed, I’ve tried doing it with my knee. 24 hours!

“And then because that guy gets a bit salty that a non-IndyCar driver is about to win an Indy race, he just ruins it.”

Norris jokes, as do all of McLaren’s drivers, but he’s serious about the amount of work he’s put into his virtual Indycar venture.

“I feel so bad for the [other McLaren] guys. Maybe some people aren’t taking it seriously… but there are still a lot of other drivers – like I had Jarv and the engineers and the guys doing strategy, and we still put time into it.”

Even at COTA there was a noticeable improvement curve for Norris in the run up to the race, and the fact his team-mates joined him at the front of the field in the last two races as they worked together is even greater proof of his hard work. The trio’s maturity in the ‘race weekends’, most visible while leading at Indy, is the brand-positive message McLaren desires.

Norris is already used to that kind of pressure in F1, and given McLaren SP is pursing F1 levels of simulation and engineering capacity, it’s introduced F1 levels of brand representation to IndyCar too since announcing its drivers in October.

Over the four months after being revealed as McLaren’s line-up at the end of October, O’Ward estimates he clocked up around 70 flights for work. Unsurprisingly he described the experience as “exhausting”, and one leg of the Mclaren SP ‘tour’ involved: “going to London and then I had to go out of town to get something done with my passport, then I had to return to Charlotte for the sim, and then we had an appearance in Arizona. I have never been so crazy like on the road.”

The highlight was visiting the McLaren Technology Centre, where each driver spent a day in the sim doing laps of Barcelona in an F1 car. While the building may be 6359km away from the Indiana HQ, the expertise there is available at a moment’s notice.

Harder even than the gruelling media tour has been staying race-fit while an extra two months has been added to pre-season due to the coronavirus pandemic; the fully equipped gyms are all shut, and the carefully curated racing driver diets have been interrupted by decreased access to shops. O’Ward is based in Texas, while Askew has moved to Indiana for this year.

The IndyCar Challenge has helped with staying in the competitive mindset needed in elite sport, the kind of mindset that leads to drivers spending their free time training and looking through data rather than succumbing to boredom, and Askew has been fortunate to get in some development work of rival Will Power’s new kart (in a safe environment). It’s keeping him sharp, attuned to the actual sensation of speed rather than the virtual one, and importantly keeping his neck muscles active.

The nearest kart track to O’Ward is four hours away, and he admits smaller neck muscles is a worry that he’s working around.

“Physically I’ll be fine, I’m training harder than ever. The first two weeks of quarantine I took it easy, put on a little bit of weight. Not to my liking.” McLaren probably wasn’t happy either. “I’ve been training twice a day [since], five days a week, and am back to where I was. Actually I’m below where I was, so I’m proud about that. But the neck is going to be the toughest to retrain.”

Askew has also increased his training regime, and fulfilled a lengthy ambition of having a top-end road bike. Keeping at the same level of fitness is hard enough in these odd times, and to let it slip but then come back better than ever is commendable.

The fitness element is even more important for Norris, who at 170cm is the shortest of the three and therefore has the least muscle mass, as F1’s 2020 cars are expected to be the fastest ever at some circuits. He expects that going from no driving at all to being back in an F1 car to be “a shock to the body”, comments he shared in an Instagram livestream with F1.

“To be able to go from doing nothing – not even testing or driving an Formula 3 car or any car of any sort – to jumping in to one of the fastest cars in the world, pulling x amount of g-forces around the corners. It’s a big shock”, said the 20-year-old.

There could be some sliding doors in McLaren’s line-up in the coming years. F1 world champions Alonso and Jenson Button are as interested as Norris in tackling IndyCar away from the ovals, while O’Ward and Askew are definitely on the F1 radar.

“[Alonso at Indy] is going to be awesome,” enthused Askew. “Obviously it’s a shame we weren’t able to do that in the Month of May, but it will happen come August. We’ll find a way to make the race happen. Fernando has been an idol of mine and an idol to a lot of [professional] drivers. Just having his presence in the paddock and as a team-mate, it’s inspiring. I can’t wait to see how he works around the engineers and how he manages a race weekend. I think Pato and I will learn a lot from him.”

It looks like McLaren SP won’t necessarily need Alonso to form a winning IndyCar line-up, and the youthful face of the brand is now completed by Norris rather than the bearded Spaniard. A reunion with Norris is just as appealing to Askew:

“I think Lando’s a tremendous talent, he brings a lot of eyes to his racing. I’m sure it will be, if he decides to do it one day, a big help to IndyCar and the team.”

McLaren’s secret (weapon) driver

McLaren SP had a third car out in the IndyCar Challenge before Norris’s arrival, and it took pole and finished fifth at Twin Ring Motegi. The man behind the wheel was Robert Wickens, who raced for SPM as a rookie in 2018 until a horror crash at Pocono that broke bones in his arms, legs, chest neck and spine and left him paraplegic. His recovery since has been inspiring.

A seat at the team is technically reserved for the 31-year-old Canadian for when he is able enough to return to a real life Indy car, and he has already gained enough strength and control in his lower body during rehabilitation that he was able to walk, cycle (on a static bike), dance and drive a specially adapted car within a year of his accident against all odds.

Wickens, Formula Renault 3.5 champion in 2011, could potentially totally overcome his disability before being back in the cockpit. For now, he has settle with being a driver coach tasked with getting the most from his team-mates’ contrasting styles.

Askew explained the relationship with Wickens, whose junior career also included second places in GP3 and Formula Two.

“Robbie really understands where I come from, and where my experience comes from. We’ve known each other for a couple of years now. It’s very cool for him to sit in the background and listen to what’s going on, and watch my telemetry and my sessions and see how I progress and manage a race weekend. I think that’s definitely where his expertise is going to come in.”

Wickens took pole and almost won on his own IndyCar debut, and claimed four podiums before his crash.

“Having Robert there day-in and day-out is pretty critical to our success,” explained Schmidt. “Robert, with six years of DTM, where they turned over every rock and screw to make those cars and drivers faster. Him coming in and being there for the test days and for the race weekends is invaluable to those drivers.”

“That,s one of the reasons, among many others, that we are so excited to bring in Fernando [too] because his reputation is of total preparation. No rock unturned. He wants to make the car fast, he wants to make the team better and he wants to win.”

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