Interviews by Sergio Álvarez.

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Turbo lag is back and it’s back with a bang: it can be found in Formula 2’s Mecachrome engine these days, how nostalgic. And good on ya, guys and gals at MC, it’s an extra curveball to handle for the young guns racing in the championship.

Also, with Iberianmph being firmly rooted in the 80s Formula 1 in particular, yes, we’re older than your parents, we abso-blooming-lutely had to investigate what’s what in this turbo lag F2 story and why.

It’s a big change to how the throttle response is.

Liam Lawson on Mecachrome F2 engine

The opportunity knox presented itself already during Baku’s qualifying presser… So fellas, tell us more, please. What’s with the driveability?

Who better to talk to than the front runners of the 2021 season.

Oscar Piastri (OP has had a few private Alpine Academy tests where he sampled Team Enstone’s 2018 Abiteboul CA18 F1 machinery in the meantime, surely he’s the one in the know when it comes to comparing engines, oops, power units): “Um, it’s not quite as good as an F1 engine, I would start with that. I mean, for me it’s been good, it’s got a lot of power, it’s got quite a lot of turbo lag so that’s something you have to manage – in the wet race in Monaco that was tricky. Um, but yeah, I mean on the whole I’ve not seen any issues with it, that’s about what I’ve got really.”

Liam Lawson: “Yeah, for me, at the moment it’s been ok. I haven’t had any major issues. It’s different, (F2 engine) being turbocharged, coming from F3, it’s a big change to how the throttle response is. I think mainly the parity so far this year has been okay. Hopefully it stays that way for the rest of the year.”

Juri Vips: “Yeah, it’s all been good so far, at least from the engine side. It’s just the turbo is quite particular in this car. The engine has no issues so far… just the gearbox.”

Collective laughs.

Yeah, um, for sure. You could tweet that this new Formula 2 creation has not had an easy start to its life since its introduction in 2018. It’s not all negative though, think about 5 good things about it.