Formula 2 sprint race winner Zak O’Sullivan admitted it felt strange to be awarded points for the drastically shortened event.
Persistent rain on Saturday played havoc with F2’s schedule. Its sprint race was originally due to take place before Formula 1’s qualifying session but was postponed by four hours due to the conditions.The race finally began on a damp track with fresh rain falling. The Safety Car was summoned due to a stationary car after three laps, at which point the rain intensified to a level where the race was red-flagged and swiftly abandoned.
Zak O’Sullivan won the race from pole position on the partially-reversed grid, having qualified 10th. He admitted the shortened race came as a disappointment.
“It would have been nice to do 18 laps, I think it was meant to be,” said O’Sullivan after his second victory of the season. “Four or five push laps and it’s classed as a race, but not really a race.”
As less than half of the race distance was covered, drivers received a reduced points allocation. Only the top five scored and O’Sullivan received five points. The points awards for shortened races were revised after F1 controversially awarded half points for a race which officially lasted just one lap at Spa in 2021.
Richard Verschoor, who finished second, was also disappointed by the early end to the race, though he admitted it may have helped him beat Zane Maloney to the final podium place.
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“Of course you would prefer to do the full race,” he said. “At this point, I was being attacked by Zane so of course I didn’t mind the Safety Car at that point, and get away with the trophy. But I’m here to race so of course I would have proved to have a full race.”
However drivers agreed the red flag was necessary due to the worsening conditions at the track.
“It started off pretty okay, that’s also the reason why we did a standing start,” said Verschoor. “But it got progressively worse throughout the race.
“To be honest I was just thinking about the red for I think 10 seconds and then it became red. Then there was too much [rain] and I could only imagine the guys behind me, they had so much more spray. Already for me in third it was quite bad so it did get worse during the race.”
Dennis Hauger, who finished second, enjoyed better visibility but accepted it would have been much worse for those running further back in the 22-car field. He said he “had no idea” why the red flag was shown at first and wondered “what happened on track, because for me it didn’t feel like it was that wet.”
“Even the spray for me wasn’t that bad so it wasn’t really in my mind,” he continued, “but looking back obviously for the guys further back for sure it would have been more of an issue.
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“But I felt we’ve been in these similar conditions in Silverstone where maybe it also should have been red-flagged. At least from my point of view it wasn’t too bad but for sure the safety is the most important and in the end it’s their call and they know better than us who has the full picture? So in the end it was the right call, I guess.”
Rain has caused visibility problems for many races at Spa in recent years. Last year Dilano van ‘t Hoff was killed in a crash during a Formula Regional European race at the track following a restart in wet conditions with poor visibility.
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RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
27th July 2024, 22:22
Another wet weather mess. Postponed pre quali (which started on inters) and then delayed until more or less dry. We got 3 laps before a mechanical retirement before an extended SC and as soon as it rains a red flag is flown for a field all on wets.
I understand Spa in the wet is a risk. I understand there have been deaths recently. But we’re told F1 can’t race in the rain due to ground effect, yet F2 is also stopped at the first sight of weather. I’d be surprised if 50% of laps in F3 this season have been under racing conditions. I think we’re in real danger of breeding a generation of drivers who have no idea where the limit is. Brutally aggressive passes are acceptable one week, races are cancelled for spray the next.
In my opinion, we need to let young drivers race these conditions – if there are multiple spinners, put out the safety car. But I’m tired of being told conditions are undriveable by people in armchairs doing everything they can to prevent a crash by avoiding racing all together.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
28th July 2024, 2:07
Yes, indeed, it’s very disappointing how they are so afraid of water, now even in junior formulas, it sucks that we have to go back to replays of races in the 80s or 90s to see actual full wet races cause of this generation of cowards (mostly talking about the race direction, the drivers would race if the director said: “if you’re afraid to race in the rain, you can retire, and leave points for those who aren’t”).
Rosa (@ciaran)
28th July 2024, 8:54
Agreed unfortunately. As much as safety should be prioritised, the FIA didnt give the race enough opportunity to proceed. It’s bizarre that they didn’t even wait for a rain-related incident before giving up!
It might have been worse at other parts of the track, but at Blanchimont/Bus Stop, it hadn’t rained even moderately in the 2 hours before the red flag.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
28th July 2024, 9:35
@Ciaran
Given the circumstances of the FREC accident last year, I disagree completely.
Rosa (@ciaran)
28th July 2024, 13:50
Point taken, I didn’t remember that one.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
28th July 2024, 13:51
@keithcollantine Exactly, An accident that became as bad as it was purely because of the poor visibility meaning that drivers couldn’t see the stationary car sitting in the middle of the straight or the flags/boards that would have warned them something had happened ahead.
Unless you have been in those sort of conditions or been trackside during conditions like that to see how little you can see through the spray you simply cannot understand how dangerous & terrifying driving with no visibility is.
And before somebody comes back with ‘Well they should slow down’ that if anything makes things more dangerous because if you lift & the car behind can’t see you he’s running straight into the back of you & that can then start a chain reaction with others cars coming behind also not been able to see & therefore ploughing into the accident.
Thats what caught out Senna at Adelaide in 1989. Brundle lifted & Senna simply didn’t see him. They were lucky in that case that neither of them spun & were left stationary on the straight for cars behind to run into.
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
28th July 2024, 13:44
@rbalonso It’s not so much that it’s undrivable and more than visibility is so bad that you can’t see far enough ahead to be able to spot if somebody has gone off, slowed due to some issue and perhaps most importantly the flags/boards.
@esploratore1 And most of those races from past decades probably should never have been started are essentially turned into chaos with only a few cars finishing and a few drivers who had very lucky escapes. Nelson Piquet for example took a tire to the face during the 1989 Adelaide GP when he basically did the same thing Senna did in driving into a wall of spray & suddenly finding a slow car appearing in the spray that he hadn’t been able to see.
That wasn’t safe then & it’s not safe now & the only reason those races were started was because of commercial pressures & poorer safety standards with drivers feedback not been listened to.
Not to mention how cars & tires were very different with more compounds available that better suited differing conditions. Apparently in FP3 yesterday the few drivers that went out at the end in the worst of the conditions gave feedback that it was too wet for inter’s but that the full wets were overheating after a lap & offering no grip on the 2nd. That is something that needs to be addressed because it suggests that Pirelli are still struggling to come up with a full wet that is as effective with as wide a working range as the Bridgestone’s used to have.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
28th July 2024, 0:08
Why don’t you put the fill classification of the race? Now I have to go someplace else to see where my fav driver finished.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
28th July 2024, 9:26
@fer-no65 The race report was published earlier.
Nick T.
28th July 2024, 3:37
F1/2/3 has become an utter joke when it comes to running in the wet and stopping races way for way too many things. Also, it seems like it takes forever to recover cars now because the marshals know that no matter what the session is being thrown under RF, SC or VSC, so they show little urgency and also because they mostly avoid using diggers. I’d say the latter would be fair in the wet, but in the dry…come on.
Retired (@jeff1s)
28th July 2024, 9:01
The car recovery has been baffling last few years. A pick-up and a string makes it simplistic and way faster In IndyCar.
Bring back ropes ne strings to F1