F2 Race Report, Budapest
A weekend that began with the green shoots of a comeback following the disappointment of Silverstone came to a similarly crushing conclusion for the team in Sunday’s Feature Race.
On Friday, after a positive practice session preparing for the races, the focus switched to single-lap pace, and title hopeful Paul Aron delivered in style with a spectacular pole position. This encouraging start, which secured him and the team two crucial points two days before the Feature had even begun, was consolidated when his title rival Hadjar was forced to start the race from the pit lane. But it all went downhill from there as Paul didn’t get the best start, then locked up whilst in the pack at Turn 1, sending him tumbling down the order to seventh.
As he gathered the momentum to start attacking the front-runners, a lap 7 move on Hauger backfired, with Paul unfortunately hitting the rear of Maloney as he passed Hauger on the inside, which brought the race to an end for both drivers.
All hopes rested with Amaury Cordeel who, with the way the race was evolving, could have been in with the chance of points contention, but on lap 22, the floor of his car bottomed on the kerb at Turn 4, pitching him round and into the wall.
Saturday’s reverse-grid Sprint was more positive, Paul starting from 10th and gaining four places to finish 6th in the final classification, accruing three points to add to the two for Pole. Amaury ended the day 20th.
Notwithstanding a disappointing conclusion to the weekend, further compounded by two five-place penalties being handed to Paul for the next race – for the incident with Maloney and earlier forcing Bearman off track – the team is down but not out. Hadjar outscored the Estonian by only two points, which takes the margin between the two from 16 to 18, but still keeps Paul’s title hopes alive with five rounds and 10 race opportunities remaining. Hitech remains fourth in the Teams’ Standings.
Sprint Race Result – Saturday
Paul Aron – P6
Amaury Cordeel – P20
Feature Race Result – Sunday
Paul Aron – DNF
Amaury Cordeel – DNF
The next race at Spa is in a week’s time. The team and drivers will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, and go again at Amaury’s home race on 26-28 July.
