Round 3 of F2 done: Montreal Recap
- therookiereporters
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
From DNF’s to a new championship leader, Canada had it all. Here is everything you need to know to keep yourself up to date.
The Track
The iconic Gilles-Villeneuve circuit made its debut with the F2 championship this weekend. The 4.361km long track with its 14 turns has been on the Formula 1 calendar since 1978 - with the exception of four years where the event was cancelled.
With infamous places like “Senna 'S' turns”, “Wall Of Champions” and “The Hairpin Curve”, the feeder series had an eventful race weekend.
Day 1
To start the weekend off, was the one and only free practice session on Friday, after a brief delay. With little to no data available from this track, the drivers were quick to head onto the circuit.
Though last weekend’s feature race winner, Gabriele Mini had stopped at the pit exit, forcing his team to wheel him back to the garage until he rejoined the session later on
Invicta Racing’s Joshua Dürksen, was the first driver to set a representative benchmark before the Norwegian driver, Martinius Stenshorne moved to the top until Dürksen reclaimed it again.
The time sheets continued to shuffle and as tyre degradation increased in the closing stages of the session, Alex Dunne topped the top of the times despite late improvements from several rivals, including Colton Herta, who climbed to fourth.
The practice session also featured a short yellow flag after Rafael Villagómez had spun into the infamous Wall Of Champions, damaging his front wing before recovering. Another short yellow flag involved Herta, who spun, and Nico Varrone, who came to a stop after the chequered flag. We also saw the polesitter from Miami, retiring early from the session.
The session ended with Dunne P1, followed up with Stenshorne on P2 and Nikola Tsolov on P3 in the championship’s debut in Montréal.
A few hours later came qualifying that determined the starting grid for the Sunday feature race. The top 10 from this qualifying session are reversed to form the front for the Saturday sprint race.
The F2 qualifying session started late as the F1 Free Practice session had been prolonged, which left the feeder series’ drivers with less margin before the afternoon’s F1 Sprint Qualifying.
When qualifying finally began Noel León was the driver to set the initial pace with a 1:26.915, before Dürksen, Mini and Rafa Câmara set a more representative effort.
Tsolov also briefly went fastest, until Varrone lowered the benchmark to a 1:22.078. The then championship leader then responded with a fastest lap on 1:22.025, moving him to the top.
Being over halfway, the finals run began, but were interrupted as Oliver Goethe hit the barriers after a big slide that triggered a red flag. With eight minutes left, the qualifying session began again, before Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak crashed and caused another stop to the session.
following another delay, the session restarted with around five minutes remaining and coming to an end of the session it was Laurens van Hoepen who could take his maiden pole position, ahead of Câmara on P2, Dunne on P3, Tsolov on P4 and Stenshorne finishing the top 5.
Day 2
Having started from P1 due to the reversed grid, Mini led the sprint race’s opening laps and built an early gap, while Léon, Dürksen, Villagómez battled behind him. Further back we saw, Tsolov fighting through the midfield as several battles unfolded.
The sprint race then changed on Lap 10 when Stenshorne and Trident’s John Bennett collided, bringing out the safety car.
At the restart, Léon was quick to pressure Mini, while behind them Villagómez overtook Dürksen for third, before Dürksen was hit by a five-second penalty for an early collision. Stenhorne was the next to overtake the Paraguayan driver, followed by Tsolov.
On Lap 18, Dürksen spun due to contact with Dunne, and Léon used the opportunity to finally overtake Mini for the race lead just before another safety car was deployed.
Once racing finally resumed by Lap 22, Léon quickly pulled clear at the front with a 1.3 second lead.
Race Control then handed Dunne a 10-second penalty for his earlier clash with Dürksen, while Tsolov also received a 10-second penalty for his earlier contact with Bennett.
The drama and chaos continued late in the race when Villagómez crashed into the wall and retired by Lap 25 out of 28. Varrone and Cian Shields also collided which forced Shields out and triggered a Virtual Safety Car.
Despite the interruptions, Léon remained calm and controlled the restart comfortably, before eventually crossing the finish line first for the first time in his F2 career.
After the race Mari Boya, was given a 10-second time penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly approaching the detection zone triggering a collision between three cars.
Dürksen’s five-second penalty for causing a collision at the start of the sprint race was changed to a three-place grid drop for the next race in Monaco as he retired before serving his time penalty.
The podium was therefore Léon on P1 for the first time in F2 history, followed by Mini on P2 - taking the lead of the championship - and Stenshorne on P3.
Day 3
The 24th of May, Sunday, was the final day of Formula 2’s debut here in Montréal, with the feature race taking place at the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit.
Starting from pole for the first time, van Hoepen initially lost the lead to Tsolov off the line before reclaiming it with a bold move into Turn 1.
Most of the field started on the purple Supersoft tyres, while drivers including Boya Roman Bilinski and Kush Maini opted for an alternative strategy on the red Soft compound.
As light rain began to fall, drivers became increasingly cautious as they made their way around the iconic circuit.
Unfortunately for the pole-sitter, the Wall Of Champions claimed its first victim as the driver crashed on Lap 5, which deployed the first safety car of the race and only shortly after, Emmerson Fittipaldi Jr. crashed after having rejoined from an early pitstop, triggering another Safety Car period.
As an incident between Bennett and Villagómez occurred, all drivers on Supersoft headed for the pits.
The race continued to unravel even more as Maini spun Tsolov around, dropping the bulgarian driver down the order and after some front left suspension damage Villagómez, he was the fourth retirement of the race, which deployed a virtual Safety Car
Later on, Câmara spun after attempting a move on Dams Lucas Oil driver, Dino Beganovic and receiving a 5-second time penalty for it, before Beganovic himself retired due to an engine issue.
Even more incidents followed as Goethe hit the wall, which caused significant damage to his car and Ritomo Miyata headed into the pits to retire as well.
With the race eventually ending after 39 laps, Stenshorne secured his maiden Formula 2 win, ahead of teammate Dunne to complete a Rodin Motorsport 1-2 finish. In P3 was the recent championship leader Mini.
Up next is Monaco, where Formula 2 races again from the 4th of June till the 7th of June.
Article written by Laura Friis
