Header image by Diego Merino; interviews by Sergio Álvarez; new style editing and normal transcribing supplied by Cyril
Fancy editing aside, I think WordPress is has reached new heights in its quest to match MySpace confusion period! Seriously, what are we doing here? Typing or playing ping-pong? Still, pretty cheap to run though. Sort of like F2 compared to F1? I guess…
So then wot has not exactly happened as planned? Nothing!
It was an OK race by F2 standards in which my man Piastri played the starring role. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know he has already won one, that’s Sprint Race 2, because obviously I’m typing this after both races, after the fact, in fact. But this entry is all about SR1.
See if you can follow my thinking and my thinking’s thinking hat – I’ve said it multiple times: I’m a thinker, no – you gotta treat Saturday F2 races in 2021 as a warm-up, a rehearsal, where they gotta get that $h*t up on that effing stage. So on Saturday them drivers are more like roadies or gofers, while on Sunday they get to play full Sir Frank W. Either way, points are what they’re after, whilst we’re after a decent and a clean race. All driver errors and incidents are purely unintentional. Or else the FIA will get immensely upset and the air will be filled with words like reprimand; somebody will even get a right old slap on the wrist.
Where were we? Ah, the presser, yeah. Let’s find out what our top three finishers had to say when interrogated by Sergio. Don’t worry folks, there’s no morbid stuff involved, we no longer live in the Middle Ages. We learned how to tweet.
SR1 Q&A
Q: Hi guys, what are you anticipating in terms of difference in tyre management between this morning’s race and Sprint Race 2 later in the evening?
Jehan Daruvala (P2): I think, like Liam (‘awesome’ Lawson) said, we’ve been here for three days testing and pretty much all the testing was in the day. So we had some idea of how to go about managing the tyres for this race, even though it was a bit hotter. Although tonight it will be a bit cooler, I still think there’ll be quite a lot of tyre management going on.
Our verdict: with Jehan’s engine finally on song and fully sorted, we can see why Red Bull is still keeping faith in the bestest of the fastest Indians in the world. JD can go full HD in F1. Well, at least WEC. Let’s face it, Le Mans 24H is no bad thing, especially if you’re totally like winning.
I like this new WordPress feature.
So what about Liam’s rubber? Fresh boots, worn out boots? Geox or Puma? Again, little did LL know about lap 9 in SR2. We knew nothing for sure. We don’t got no time machine.
Liam Lawson (P1): Yeah, I think very similar. Obviously the cooler temperatures – well, that’s still not really cool (when Nico hits you, that’s not cool, guys) – even at night the track is going to be super hot so there will be massive degradation anyway. I think it will be a bit less. For me, I’m super super excited to drive at night time.
This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the moment when AT TomClarksonF1 intervenes. Over to you, TC.
TCF1: Liam, what percentage of today’s race were you able to push flat out?
LL: Probably fifteen minutes off the line, after that you just felt it, honestly. This is the track with the biggest degradation, we all know that, it’s really really hard on tyres. The track is super abrasive so the wear is massive and obviously with the temperature as well you get massive thermal degradation. Overall, this place is really really tough on tyres so there’s not any part of the race that you’re actually pushing.
Lovely, LL loves a good double adverb in a sentence. Had he raced in the seventies, his car of choice would’ve been the Tyrrell P34.
David?
David Beckmann: I think the second race this evening will be maybe a bit easier, for sure. The air temperature is similar, but the asphalt temperature obviously goes a lot lower because we have no sun (there has to be an invisible sun, no?), but there will still be a lot of deg. Everyone knows that in the end and everyone will be pushing a little bit more. You also have to defend yourself and it will be again a very tough race, but I can already use my experience which I gained from this race and see how it’s going.
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