Guest Column
Bruno Michel's Debrief: It's a tie!
CEO Bruno Michel looks back at a dramatic second round of the 2022 season and picks out his key topics from Imola.
Michel talks about the new faces at the top, a tight Drivers' Championship, and looks ahead to Round 3.
NEW FACES ON TOP
The second round of our 2022 season saw three new faces at the top, starting with Trident’s Zane Maloney who took pole position in challenging conditions on Friday. In the Sprint Race, Franco Colapinto claimed his and Van Amersfoort Racing’s maiden F3 win, whilst on Sunday, Roman Stanek took the Feature Race win for Trident. This means we now have two different polesitters and four different race winners from four different teams over four races…
IT'S A TIE
Looking at the Drivers’ Championship, Victor Martins and Arthur Leclerc are both on 36 points, with the Frenchman leading the Monegasque racer thanks to his Sakhir Feature Race win. Both men had some challenges to overcome last weekend, most notably for Leclerc who had to start both races on P21 after Enzo Trulli collided with him in Qualifying. The PREMA Racing man once again put his strong driving skills on full display in the Feature Race, finishing fourth, thus scoring 12 valuable points. All things considered, it is a great result, but surely a frustrating one. Meanwhile, Martins took 11 points, just enough to keep the Championship lead. The ART Grand Prix man will be looking for a better weekend in Barcelona next month.
READ MORE: Rasmussen pleased with first points on F3 return
A WEEKEND TO REMEMBER Further down the Championship order, Roman Stanek, Jak Crawford and Isak Hadjar round up the Top 5, covered by just 5 five points! The Czech driver from Trident scored all 33 points in Imola last week to move up to third in the Standings. He inherited the Feature Race win after his teammate Zane Maloney made a mistake at the restart, but Stanek’s mature drive to the chequered flag was impressive.
Another man who impressed last weekend was Crawford: third in Qualifying and on the podium in both races, the American is now fourth in the Championship, a point behind Stanek. Finally, rookie Isak Hadjar claimed another piece of silverware with third place in the Feature Race. Since the start season, he has been quick and clean, and had he not suffered a puncture in Round 1 Feature Race, he could be featured even higher in the Standings.
A LOOK AT THE TEAMS’ STANDINGS
A challenging weekend for ART Grand Prix, who entered only two cars following Juan Manuel Correa’s injury, means that PREMA Racing overtook them in the Championship, leading the French squad by 20 points. Meanwhile, Trident scored the most points in the Sprint race (16) and with victory and fastest lap on Sunday, the reigning champions move up from 6th to third place ahead of Hitech Grand Prix. The rest of the pack have showed great promises, but they will need a bit more consistency and sometimes luck to bridge the gap to the leaders.
Next up is Barcelona, where we had in-season testing earlier this month. It’s a track that the teams and the drivers know like the back of their hands. With nine different podium finishers from six different teams, out of 12 podium places so far, it is hard to predict who will come out on top!