F2 | Monaco: Barnard and O’Sullivan win, but Aron takes the lead

The F2 weekend featured two very different races, especially what happened in the Feature Race, with a race decided towards the end thanks to an alternative strategy and an intervention of the Virtual Safety Car at the most favorable moment.

The one who took advantage of this was Zak O’Sullivan, who took advantage of the opposite tactic of his rivals to change tires right at the end in the neutralization period of the race, thus overtaking Isack Hadjar who had inherited the first position following the problem suffered by Richard Verschoor .

In the sprint race, however, the first success came for Taylor Barnard, who had not yet scored any points before the Monaco stage. Taking advantage of the reversed grid, the Briton achieved his first victory in the category.

As for the standings, Paul Aron takes the lead ahead of Isack Hadjar, two points behind the top, while Zane Maloney slips to third place. The others are further behind, with Hauger in fourth position but 27 points behind the Estonian.

Sprint race: Barnard’s first victory arrives

After his experience in Formula E where he replaced Sam Bird, Taylor Barnard returned to Formula 2 just in time for the Monaco Grand Prix and, probably, there couldn’t have been a better time for a return to the preparatory category.

Barnard became the seventh F2 race winner this season, taking victory in the sprint race by more than five seconds ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto, despite a heated finish due to a red flag. Before the Monaco race, Barnard was the only driver without a point under his belt, but the British AIX driver always appeared composed and neutralized threats coming from behind.

The first stoppage occurred after just one corner, with the unfortunate Victor Martins suffering significant damage to his left front suspension due to contact with Jak Crawford, ending up in the barriers at Santa Devota. Subsequently, on the sixth lap, it was Pepe Marti’s turn to call the Safety Car back onto the track, as the Spanish driver ended up against the barriers at the Piscine after hitting the barriers.

Taylor Barnard (GBR, PHM AIX Racing)

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

While not causing the safety car to intervene further, Oliver Bearman also found himself in trouble on lap fourteen when he made a mistake alongside Anthony Noghes, hitting the barriers with enough force to damage the steering. The Briton from the Ferrari Driver Academy continued the race, but a sudden loss of power caused him to definitively slip out of the points.

A duel between championship leader Zane Maloney and Williams Academy youngster Zak O’Sullivan sent the red flags flying on lap 22. Having already touched at the Grand Hotel hairpin, the two had a second contact at Rascasse which left Maloney spinning, with Maini forced to end up on the side due to little space available to avoid the accident.

A restart at the end saw the last duels, with fourth-placed Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who put on the soft tire to try to get the first podium, although in reality he finished around two seconds behind the third-placed finisher. In fact, it was Bortoleto and Hauger who got on the podium, with the Italian finishing his first experience in Monaco in fourth position. Points also for Colapinto, Stanek, Aron and Hadjar, who finishes in eighth place.

Feature Race: a VSC changes an already written story

If no twists and turns occurred in the sprint race up front, a very different story was that of Sunday’s Feature Race, in which O’Sullivan achieved an unthinkable victory in F2 on the streets of Monaco after starting from fifteenth position.

Except for a small contact between Jak Crawford and the Invicta driver Kush Maini at the Grand Hotel hairpin which put the American out of action, the start of the Feature Race proved to be much less chaotic, also because the drivers know that the difference can be made do at a strategic level by trying to invent something. However, this does not mean that there were no episodes, because the start represented the last nightmare of a difficult season for Victor Martins, driver of the Alpine Academy, because after a slow start he slipped out of the points zone, nullifying the second position achieved in qualifying.

But the real drama came on the nineteenth lap, when Richard Verschoor, who was leading at the time, reported a problem that put an end to his dreams of glory. The technical problem seemed to limit the power output of his Trident and, although he managed to maintain the position until the pit stops, when he was then overtaken by his rivals, not to mention that he subsequently had to retire. The Dutchman was thus unable to materialize the pole achieved in the previous days.

Isack Hadjar, Campos Racing,

Photo credit: Red Bull Content Pool

Also during the pitstop phase, the Prema pairing of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman started a close duel, battling wheel to wheel after the Italian returned to the track. Ultimately, Bearman sealed the position with a maneuver at the hairpin. After following Franco Colapinto for some time, Antonelli was again at the center of the action on lap 37, making a bold overtake on the MP Motorsport driver to move up to eighth place.

The twist came on lap 40, when O’Sullivan, who was following the alternative strategy, was given a stop under VSC, resulting from Durksen’s stop after the stop that had occurred a few moments earlier. Knowing that the only chance of scoring points on Sunday was a late safety car intervention, ART left O’Sullivan out until lap 40 on soft tyres, and this gamble paid off in the most dramatic way, as he became the eighth different winner of the season.

Having entered the pits before the VSC was called, O’Sullivan’s stop was considered legal and allowed the ART driver to snatch victory from Hadjar, who had inherited the lead after Verschoor’s problem.