| Red Bull Juniors Zane Maloney and Dennis Hauger both stood on the podium in the first weekend of the Formula 2 Championship.
After 19-year-old Norwegian Hauger took an excellent 2nd on Saturday in Bahrain it was Maloney’s turn to impress in the Feature Race. The 19-year-old Barbadian put in a stunning drive from P18 to 3rd.
Maloney the man on Sunday
“An amazing weekend just finished here in Bahrain. It didn’t set off to plan, we qualified P18, due to a mistake on my side, so of course, that was not a great way to start.”
“But the team gave me an amazing car and we had great pace in both races and to come home with P3 in the Feature Race in my first ever F2 race with Carlin is an unbelievable result.”
“So of course I am very happy and looking forward to Saudi Arabia, it’s a long season so we need to keep pushing.”
Hauger had it on Saturday hapless on Sunday
“Overall a decent Quali, could have been P2 but happy to be in a good position for the weekend.”
“Race 1 was quite good. Good pace and managed to take one by one in the end. Good points from starting 6th.”
“Race 2 we had a technical issue with the turbo mainly which just ruined our race. We could easily have been on the podium with the pace we had shown.»
«Unbelievable to see the engine already fail before we have even completed a full race weekend… but at least we know we have good pace and can go into next race with good confidence to gain back our lost points.”
Ayumu Iwasa wants all round improvement
“It was a really tough weekend for me. Especially today’s race was quite difficult, I’m not happy about this result,” stated the 21-year-old Japanese frankly.
“I guess I have some big points to improve for the future. I think we need to work on it. I think that as a team we have a lot of improvement to make, from my driving performance and team performance.”
“So we will see what we can improve, keep pushing, it’s just the beginning of the season.”
Isack Hadjar fights back in Race 2
“Qualifying: Felt really tough on the first set of tyres extracting most of the grip,” explained the 18-year-old Frenchman. “So I was quite far back on that first run, but on the second run, I think I managed to do a strong lap with a big step of nearly 1 second compared to the previous run, so I was happy about that.”
“The most frustrating was to hear that I was only 3 tenths off P3, knowing I didn’t do the perfect lap. But anyway, pace was missing in the car, so we will analyse and make it better next time.”
“Race1: Having a penalty before even starting the race for something out of my control was really frustrating regarding the pace I have and the opening lap I did, so after boxing for a stop and go, that was it basically, really frustrating,” he reported referring to the 10 stop and go penalty he received for a starting procedure infringement.
“Race 2: We committed to a different strategy to the guys around, starting on Option tyres and betting on a strong first stint which we had. I had a good start but had to avoid chaos around the outside of T4, so if I had chosen the right side of the track, I felt I could have gone to the top 6 immediately.”
“Then after a great pitstop for the team, I went long game on the prime tyres and it paid off at the end overtaking a few cars, to finish P7 from 14th on the grid. Overall we need more pace, but I’m happy with the job I did.”
Enzo Fittipaldi lacking rubber at the end
“So the first race weekend of the year is over and we had a double points finish here in Bahrain,” stated the 21-year-old Brazilian. “P8 in the Sprint Race and P9 in the Feature.”
“It was a frustrating result for us in the Feature Race because we had a lot of pace at the beginning of the race, went from 13th to 6th, fighting for a top 6 finish. And we just had no tyres left in the last 5 laps. And we ended up finishing P9.”
“So, yeah, that was frustrating, we’ll analyse the data, learn from this and be back much stronger for Jeddah in two weeks’ time.”
Jak Crawford taking the learning curve
“It was a tough weekend, lots learnt though,” explained the 17-year-old American. “In Qualifying, we just didn’t have the pace. It was very close though and I think we were only 3 tenths from potentially P5 so it was really close but we were on the bottom end of that and we just didn’t have the speed there but knew we would have in the race.”
“In the Sprint Race, we went for a different strategy. I started on Primes so I spent most of the race at the bottom of the pack and working my way up as the others started to degrade and I ended up finishing in P10. But I had a penalty so I moved back to 14th.
“It was a good race, it showed our speed, we were the highest finisher on primes, the harder compound, so that was positive.”
“Going into the Feature Race we knew it was going to be difficult and a lot would depend on strategy. I think that both from my side and the team’s side we could have done a bit better, just with the strategy in general as well as with tyre saving. So we can improve there.”
“Still it was a positive race, we gained 7 positions and I think that with a bit different strategy we could have finished in the top five. Of course, that’s in hindsight.”
“I think I really learnt a lot this weekend even though it wasn’t the greatest weekend results-wise, zero points. But I learnt so much and I am definitely more ready for Jeddah than I was for Bahrain.” |
