PREVIEW: 2022 FIA Formula 2 Round 8 – Spielberg

A thrilling weekend at the legendary Silverstone Circuit is succeeded by round 8 of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 which comes from the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.

It marks a return for F2 at the Austrian circuit after a year out in 2021 with FIA Formula 3 appearing at the circuit instead. With the race to the 2022 championship crown well underway now, it will be an important weekend for the front runners to cement their places at the top.

The Story So Far

The upcoming weekend marks the start of the second half of the season and as things stand, Felipe Drugovich leads the drivers standings by forty-two points to second place Théo Pourchaire.

After his Feature Race win from pole position last time out, Logan Sargeant completes the top three in the standings with the American driver also being the rookie driver with the most points.

As well as leading the drivers’ standings, MP Motorsport also lead the teams’ standings with 170 points to ART Grand Prix‘s 160 points. The reigning teams’ championship winners PREMA Racing currently find themselves in fourth place behind Carlin who sit in third with 147 points.

With Sargeant taking most of the plaudits at Silverstone, Virtuosi Racing’s Jack Doohan also had a weekend to remember with the Alpine junior winning his first race in the category after taking the chequered flag in Saturday’s Sprint Race.

The Australian put in a dazzling performance in tricky conditions to beat DAMS‘ Ayumu Iwasa to the line by just under a second.

What Happened Last Year?

Due to the cost-cutting measures implemented by the FIA in the 2021 season, F3 were the only championship to support Formula One at the Austrian Grand Prix meaning that there was no 2021 data to put to use for F2.

However during the 2020 season there were two separate rounds which took place at the Red Bull Ring for the first two rounds of the season.

During the first round, Callum Illot was victorious in the Feature Race after Zhou Guanyu started on pole position with both drivers racing for UNI-Virtuosi.

The round marked current championship leader Drugovich’s debut in F2, with the Brazilian being victorious in the Sprint Race after starting on reverse grid pole position.

The following round at the same venue saw Robert Shwartzman win the Feature Race after Yuki Tsunoda qualified on pole position. Christian Lundgaard then completed the weekend by winning the Sprint Race on Sunday.

One rookie who has been on fine form recently is Frederik Vesti and the Danish driver is looking to continue in the same fashion at a track who knows a decent amount about,

“I am very much looking forward to driving at Spielberg this year. In the last three years I’ve driven there I’ve got the pole and the win so in terms of results, it’s been a really great track for me.”

“It’s a very simple track but that also means it becomes very difficult because all the cars are very similar. All the lap times are within a few tenths of a second in Qualifying and in the race, so you really need to do a good job and a clean lap to be able to do the pole position.”

Vesti also notes that due to the simple nature of the track, overtaking and tyre management are a little bit less stressful than what you might find elsewhere.

“Red Bull Ring is one of the easier tracks for tyre management because it has not a lot of corners and a lot of straight lines. But we still need to do a good job and make sure we’re on top of our game in terms of tyre management.”

“In terms of overtaking, I think you can set it up during Turn 1 and then you can make it stick in Turn 3. If you don’t make it work at Turn 3 then you have another shot in Turn 4 so overtaking is pretty OK.”

Track Facts

Distance: 4.318 km (2.683 miles)
Total Turns: 10
DRS Zones: 3
Available Tyre Compounds: Medium/Supersoft
Lap Record: 1:13.396 by Charles Leclerc in 2017 (PREMA Racing)
2020 Pole Position: 1:14.416 by Zhou Guanyu (UNI-Virtuosi)

Weekend Schedule

Free Practice: Friday – 10:05 BST (11:05 Local)Qualifying: Friday – 14:55 BST (15:55 Local)Sprint Race: Saturday – 16:55 BST (17:55 Local)Feature Race: Sunday – 09:05 BST (10:05 Local)