Event
Formula 2 2024 season: Title battle goes down to the wire after Qatar F2 races
by Samarth Kanal
8min read
After the round in Qatar, half a point separates the two 2024 Formula 2 Championship leaders going into the finale in Abu Dhabi - where Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar will face off for the title over the last two races of the season.
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After the round in Qatar, half a point separates the two 2024 Formula 2 Championship leaders going into the finale in Abu Dhabi - where Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar will face off for the title over the last two races of the season.
Prema’s Oliver Bearman won the sprint race on Saturday and Hitech’s Paul Aron took victory in the following feature race at Qatar’s Lusail International Circuit - a new venue for the Formula 1 feeder series.
In the penultimate round of the season, drivers were surprised by how challenging it was to overtake, a debutant turned heads and the title leader was hit with a penalty.
Here is the technical report from the 13th round of the 2024 F2 season.
Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto celebrates on the feature race podium in Qatar
Why was it so hard to overtake in Qatar?
Lusail is a rapid succession of 16 sweeping corners with a one-kilometre start-finish straight. It’s a far cry from Monaco - but overtaking is still difficult in Qatar.
This became evident during the F2 sprint race, the first-ever F2 championship race to take place in Qatar. Drivers attempted to pass going down the outside or inside of Turn 1 and occasionally out of Turn 16, but their lunges were late and they often found themselves going wheel-to-wheel through sector one, which led to a few spins and collisions - subsequently even more on Sunday in the feature race.
Part of that difficulty was down to the track layout. This track has long-radius corners, suited to motorcycle racing, and the lack of hard braking zones means there’s very little differentiation in terms of how late drivers can brake.
Furthermore, a succession of winding corners in the second sector leads to drivers being reluctant to stray from the racing line to avoid losing time.
CFD simulation courtesy of Simscale showing the higher pressure flow encountered by the car in front (R) compared to the lower pressure flow encountered by the car behind (L)
With drivers essentially following each other in a line for much of the race, another factor soon hampered their overtaking attempts: dirty air.
When following a car at high speed, the car behind faces a wake of turbulent air. This is a zone of relatively chaotic airflow rather than the parallel and predictable airflow cars normally operate in.
Turbulent air is therefore disruptive - you might have felt it shaking the cabin uncomfortably during a flight.
The leading car also creates a low pressure zone behind. Low pressure airflow reduces the amount of downforce generated by the car behind.
This means in a succession of corners the car behind will lose grip, which makes it hard to overtake going into corners - but also increases slip and therefore wear on the tyres.
However, one advantage of following a car in a straight line is the slipstream effect, when the following car is within a vacuum created by the leading car and is sucked towards the car in front. You might have experienced a similar feeling driving behind a truck on the motorway.
Simulation of slipstreaming in F2 with turbulent air affecting the car behind
F2 sprint race winner Bearman said the dirty air effect was most pronounced “when you [got] within two seconds” of the car in front.
“So, it’s really hard to follow,” he added. On hard tyres compared to his race rival Isack Hadjar’s grippier (but less durable) medium tyres, Bearman didn’t have a tyre advantage either. But Hadjar’s medium tyres wore out halfway into the races and with eight laps remaining Bearman was within DRS range.
Even with DRS, Bearman found it difficult to overtake - although he made a late lunge into Turn 1 at the start of Lap 21 of 23 to take Hadjar by surprise.
The Prema driver pointed at the DRS zone - which had been shortened by 100 metres to make overtaking more difficult for the Formula 1 cars - as another issue.
“I know that they shortened the DRS [zone] looking at F1. But we have quite a different DRS effect,” he said.
Oliver Bearman passing Isack Hadjar in the F2 sprint race at Qatar
“I think they should have a different DRS zone for us that would open from the exit of the last corner. We have a much smaller DRS effect, we have less drag, so the delta drag from DRS-on to DRS-off is much smaller.
“Opening DRS… you hardly even feel it sometimes. Only because the wind is in our favour today that we have a little bit of effect, but it's not really that big. In dirty air you can't really do anything about it, but for us in F2 there's a few more straights where maybe you could add it just to help us stay a bit closer.”
Bearman’s comments were echoed by other drivers including DAMS driver Jak Crawford, who, incidentally, will serve a five-place grid penalty in Abu Dhabi for causing a collision.
However, the FIA refrains from changing the DRS set-up between F1 and F2 for numerous reasons - as the system is already quite complex, and DRS is only implemented on the one straight in Qatar for safety reasons as well. Furthermore, changing the infrastructure of DRS for numerous series would take up valuable time in an already congested weekend schedule.
Oliver Bearman leads leads Jak Crawford over the line in the Qatar F2 feature race
Bortoleto and Invicta error sends title fight to Abu Dhabi
Bortoleto led the drivers’ standings over Hadjar by 0.5 points entering Qatar but his advantage diminished by three point over the two races.
The Brazilian driver, who will race for Sauber in F1 next season, finished fifth behind Hadjar in the sprint race and then finished first on the road, two places ahead of Hadjar, in the following day’s feature race. However, Bortoleto was had five seconds added to his Sunday race time for crossing the white line at the pit entry, which is dangerous as it could lead to collisions during pitstop sequences.
Bortoleto was about to enter the pits during a virtual safety car (VSC) in Qatar but just as he was about to, the team reminded him that he could not serve his mandatory pitstop during the VSC - and therefore told him to stay out on track.
He did not dispute the penalty, owning up to his mistake after the race.
“I just figured out [not to pit] when I was already over the bollard - that is where we are permitted to pit - and there was a moment. When I realised, it was too late and I crossed back to the track and lost a lot of time there.”
The five-second penalty dropped Bortoleto down to third behind rival Hadjar after the race as he could not build up enough of a gap to nullify it - but it could have been worse for the Invicta driver.
A drive-through penalty could've been the sanction - but the FIA appears to have moved away from implementing drive-throughs for offences like these given it believes they are too punitive.
The main difference from what I’m used to is definitely pitstops. It’s a lot more complex than what people think - stopping in the right place, pushing at the pit entry and pushing on cold tyres afterwards as well.
Dino Beganovic
, F2 driver
The pit entry at Qatar is on the main straight of the track, just after the final corner
The challenge of stepping up to F2 mid-season
In Qatar, Dino Beganovic - who finished sixth in the 2024 Formula 3 Championship - became the 28th driver to race in the 2024 Formula 2 Championship when he made his debut for DAMS.
With numerous rookies joining the championship to make their respective debuts, we looked at the technical challenges drivers face when making the step from Formula Regional and F3 to F2.
Beganovic impressed on his qualifying debut, putting his DAMS car fourth on the grid - with just one flying lap. The Bosnian-Swede had most recently raced in the Macau Grand Prix for Formula Regional cars after finishing his F3 campaign.
He said it was a “huge step” transitioning from the 270 horsepower Formula Regional car - as well as the 380hp F3 car - to the 620hp F2 car in Qatar.
Beganovic added that pitstops - which are not mandatory nor planned in F3 - were a particular focus for him entering F2, where a pitstop is mandatory in the feature race.
“The main difference from what I’m used to is definitely pitstops. It’s a lot more complex than what people think - stopping in the right place, pushing at the pit entry and pushing [exiting the pits] on cold tyres afterwards as well.”
Dino Beganovic driving for DAMS at the 2024 Qatar F2 round
The DAMS driver practised pitstops for the first time in the 45-minute practice session on Friday before qualifying.
“I hope I'm prepared enough for it,” he said before the sprint race, where he finished 11th after contact with Rodin’s Ritomo Miyata - who was handed a two-place penalty for that particular collision.
Beganovic also conducted plenty of simulator work after finding out he would step up to DAMS to replace Juan Manuel Correa “a couple of weeks before Macau”.
He admitted: “Actually, I don't know if I would have done Macau if I knew I was doing the last two races [of the F2 season]. But at the same time, I don't regret at all doing Macau. Then it was a very intense period, going from Macau straight to Le Mans, where the team is based, to do three days of simulator work straight away. So, it was definitely something that was intense.”
However, race teams’ simulators are no replacement for real track experience. They use renditions of real circuits, but small details such as camber, differing surface types and kerb abrasion might not translate from the real circuit to the simulator.
“Something that you don't get is the banking of the circuit,” explained Beganovic. “When we did a track walk [compared to] feeling it during driving, it felt much more banked than what you feel in the simulator.”
As a Ferrari junior driver, Beganovic has experienced the simulator at Maranello, which he said is a step up compared to the F2 simulator at Le Mans.
The Ferrari F1 simulator building at Maranello
“Luckily, I have the advantage or the privilege to drive in the F1 simulator in Ferrari, which helped me to understand some things about the circuit - not the car, but more the circuit.
“Maybe more of the F1 teams have a more specific track design or [laser] scan of the circuit, but for F2 teams it is about [whether they] can put that money to scan tracks.”
When it came to the car, Beganovic said the F2 machine was perhaps lighter in handling feel than the Formula Regional.
Another driver who has stepped in mid-season - Luke Browning, who replaced Zak O’Sullivan at ART Grand Prix from Monza - noted that brakes were another major point of differentiation between F3 and F2 cars.
“I've never had carbon brakes before. If anyone doesn't know, they take a bit more warming up, they work at a completely different operating temperature than the steel brakes in Formula 3,” he said after making his debut.
“The tyres are a lot bigger; they are different to warm up, they have a different peak, there is a different way of driving for them."
After taking 10th in the sprint race, Beganovic recovered to fifth place in his maiden F2 feature race outing.
The 2024 F2 Championship concludes in Abu Dhabi on December 6-8.