PREMA Racing faces disappointing Feature Race run
PREMA Racing experienced a difficult feature Race today at Barcelona and the Spanish circuit signed off from its 2022 FIA Formula 2 weekend.
Starting from fourth place, Jehan Daruvala was forced to retire early by an electronic issue. The Indian, who was starting on the harder Prime tyres, was aiming to gain a strategic advantage by pitting later than his contenders and fighting back on softer tyres. Unfortunately, the team didn’t get to see the outcome of that choice as the problem resulted in a DNF..
Dennis Hauger was starting from P14 after a difficult qualifying session on Friday. The Norwegian was involved in early contact and had to pit for a new front wing. He was later penalised five seconds for the incident.
PREMA Racing’s Red Bull Junior pairing will be back in the hunt next week at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix.
#1 DENNIS HAUGER
“I made contact in the first lap and I had to pit. I struggled a bit with the grip on prime tyres. I switched to options quite early on and I tried to be more careful at the beginning and they came more towards the end. The pace was not too bad in the final laps, but it was obviously way too late with the five-second penalty as well. For today it was a frustrating weekend, we’ll look at what we have to do next week.”
Qualifying: P14
Starting position Race 1: P14
Starting position Race 2: P14
Fastest Lap: 1’29″381
Race 1: P12
Race 2: P13
#2 JEHAN DARUVALA
“We started on primes, we were the only in the top-10, and I think we were in a good position, top-5 at that time. Then I lost the electronics and the steering blacked out. I tried to reset the car with the master switch but it didn’t come back. It’s a shame. It’s obviously a race of woulda shoulda coulda, but I think we had a good pace and the strategy would have worked out seeing how quickly the other drivers came up on the options. It’s a bit demoralizing to see, but that’s racing. We will fire back next week and see what we can do.”
Qualifying: P4
Starting Position Race 1: P7
Starting Position Race 2: P4
Fastest Lap: 1’28″884
Race 1: P4
Race 2: DNF
Source | Photo: PREMA Racing