The 2024 F2 season started incredibly for Zane Maloney in Bahrain with a double win, but he was not seen on the podium in Saudi Arabia as Dennis Hauger and Enzo Fittipaldi claimed wins at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Feeder Series analyses the big storylines from the championship’s second round.

By Martin Lloyd

The Jeddah race weekend included the polesitter’s withdrawal after an F1 call-up, the Bahrain double winner starting in the bottom third of the grid for both races and the original sprint winner’s disqualification for a throttle map infringement. Little was predictable in Jeddah – especially not the events before the sprint race on Friday.

1. Bearman steps up

Ollie Bearman is currently last in the Formula 2 championship standings, but this does not begin to tell the story of his Saudi weekend. While the Briton had a torrid opening weekend in Bahrain, he was set to start on pole in Saturday’s feature race after a strong qualifying on Thursday.

This would change, and quickly: Bearman was called up to replace Carlos Sainz, who had appendicitis, at Ferrari in Formula 1. This meant that he would take no further part in the F2 weekend, and the 18-year-old never even earned the two points for pole position, which are only awarded at the beginning of the feature race.

The Prema driver had plenty of support, not least from the F2 grid. Paul Aron noted in the post-sprint press conference that he hoped for a good result for Bearman because the Ferrari junior was representing the whole series.

Bearman delivered on Saturday in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. After qualifying 11th on his first day in the car, he finished a highly impressive seventh in his first F1 race, and it now seems almost certain that he will be on the F1 grid full-time in 2025. Bearman will have to perform well in the remaining 12 F2 rounds to achieve that – but Saturday’s race showed he clearly has the talent to move on to F1.

2. Maloney strong despite poor qualifying

When the season opened in Sakhir, Zane Maloney eclipsed the rest of the field with ease. After having come from eighth on the grid to win the sprint race, he was already leading the feature race even before chaos ensued at the opening turn.

In Jeddah, there was no such dominance. A lowly qualifying position of 16th largely put paid to any hopes of victory, but Maloney still managed to score 11 points. The Barbadian stayed out of trouble throughout the Saudi weekend and finished an impressive fourth in the sprint race before taking seventh place in the feature.

Drives such as these, in which solid points are taken despite a poor qualifying, are the drives that could propel Maloney to a championship challenge. While he did not replicate the headline results of Sakhir, the Rodin driver scored the fifth-most points of any driver this weekend to not only maintain his championship lead but extend it from 12 to 15 points. It is taking more time for teammate Ritomo Miyata to become acquainted with F2 after his move from Super Formula, but Maloney’s results prove that Rodin’s race pace is strong. 

3. Important wins for Fittipaldi and Hauger

Two drivers who wanted to improve in Jeddah were Dennis Hauger and Enzo Fittipaldi. They achieved their goals with aplomb.

Hauger had achieved a pair of eighth places in Bahrain alongside the fastest lap in the feature race, showing flashes of speed. He crossed the line second in the Jeddah sprint race, finishing seven tenths clear of Paul Aron. After the race, Hauger was promoted to first after Richard Verschoor’s disqualification for an illegal throttle map. The following day, the Norwegian beat Jak Crawford by 0.031 seconds and Amaury Cordeel by 0.158 to take third in a photo finish.

Fittipaldi scored no points at Sakhir, in part because of an unavoidable Turn 1 collision with Isack Hadjar that forced him to retire, but Jeddah marked a turnaround. Fittipaldi finished third in the sprint with Verschoor’s disqualification before delivering a stunning feature race victory, one he dedicated to great-uncle Wilson Fittipaldi, who had passed away two weeks before. On Lap 22, the Van Amersfoort driver passed Cordeel and Juan Manuel Correa in one stellar move around the outside at Turn 1 and eventually won his first F2 feature race by almost eight seconds over Kush Maini.

For both drivers, this weekend was crucial. Both are in their third full year of F2, both left the Red Bull Junior Team after last year, and both need strong seasons to impress any future suitors in other categories. Double podiums, including race wins for both, need to be supported by consistent results in the coming rounds, but the pair’s results in Saudi will do their seasons no harm.

4. Strong trio show that speed is transferable

While they may not have won either race, three drivers showed speed throughout both the Bahrain and Saudi weekends. Kush Maini has been among the fastest drivers in qualifying at both races; Paul Aron finished on the podium in both events; and Jak Crawford took second and was a whisker away from taking another in the Jeddah feature race. All three have started to show the consistency required for a strong season.

Maini inherited Bearman’s pole position and finished second in the feature race. While the win was out of reach given Fittipaldi’s impressive pace, the Indian was able to finish on the podium. When added to his pole position and eighth place in the sprint, Maini scored 21 points in Saudi Arabia, the third-highest total in the field. After an impressive recovery drive in the Bahrain feature following his disqualification from qualifying, he performed impressively throughout the weekend.

Hitech’s Aron finished second in the sprint race, taking nine points and his second consecutive podium. The feature race was a more difficult affair after he lost places in the pit stop cycle, but he salvaged a point for 10th in the feature despite being spun by Victor Martins.

Crawford did not manage to take a podium, but he qualified an impressive third and took fifth in the sprint followed by fourth in the feature. Now driving for DAMS and with the backing of Aston Martin, the American is showing an upturn in form after a mixed debut season. It seems that this trio could be a force to be reckoned with in 2024; Australia will solidify whether this is the case.

5. Unexpected results in the feature race

Two factors combined to produce a surprising set of feature race results. First, a slew of retirements and one withdrawal from the field meant that only 15 drivers finished the race. Second, a safety car on lap 16 gave the three medium-shod runners the chance to pit for supersoft tyres, enabling them to jump ahead of those who had already stopped.

While Correa opted to gamble on a later safety car and stay out on mediums until three laps before the end, Cordeel and Taylor Barnard chose to take advantage of the safety car and hope that their tyres would hold out for the remaining 12 laps.  

Barnard dropped through the field and came home 13th, one spot ahead of Correa, but Cordeel fought for a podium until the dying seconds, when Crawford and Hauger both passed him in the final corner of the final lap. It would have been the Belgian’s first career podium in his third F2 season, but he was forced to settle for fifth. 

Also of note was that Van Amersfoort rookie Rafael Villagómez finished ninth, scoring his first points in the series, while Martins received a five-second penalty for spinning Aron and was forced to settle for 11^th in a disappointing start to the season. With Bearman also still scoreless, neither of the two top rookies from the 2023 season, and arguably the two title favourites entering the season, have taken points yet this year.

Header photo credit: Sebastiaan Rozendaal / Dutch Photo Agency