Formula 2 took to the streets of Monaco for its fifth round of the 2024 season, with rookies Taylor Barnard and Zak O’Sullivan emerging as first-time race winners. Feeder Series analyses the main talking points of the weekend. 

By Martin Lloyd

Track action in Monaco was spread out over four days rather than the customary three, and the first two days provided drama of their own. Thursday’s practice session took place in damp conditions, while Friday’s split qualifying sessions – the first dry-weather running drivers got – included a hair-raising near-collision between Ritomo Miyata and Isack Hadjar in Monaco’s famous tunnel.

Hadjar and Aron are fastest again

Campos’ Isack Hadjar and Hitech’s Paul Aron have both enjoyed remarkable starts to the new F2 season. Both have strung together impressive performances in the early rounds, earning a combined eight podiums.

Hadjar had won two consecutive feature races ahead of the Monaco weekend and was in stunning form. The Frenchman would have won a third on Sunday had Zak O’Sullivan not struck gold with a late virtual safety car that catapulted him into the lead.

Meanwhile, Aron has scored in all but one of the opening ten races, taking the championship lead for the first time after finishing third in the feature race. And while the 20-year-old may not yet have won his first F2 race, he has excelled, finishing each of his last five races within the top seven. His success is all the more impressive given that unlike many of his F2 rivals, he is not supported by an F1 junior programme.

With nine rounds remaining, it remains too early to discuss championship contenders, but Aron and Hadjar are making strong early cases for themselves.

ART begin to find speed

There is no doubt that Zak O’Sullivan’s victory in Monaco’s feature race was lucky.

ART were waiting as late as possible for an intervention that would allow race leader O’Sullivan, who was on the alternate strategy, to lose less time in the pits. Their prayers were answered on lap 40 of 42, when Joshua Dürksen had a lapse in concentration and caused a collision with Zane Maloney. O’Sullivan entered the pits four seconds before the Virtual Safety Car was called for the incident, and he emerged in the lead of the race and saw out the final moments in front to take the win.

ART had already shown season-best pace at Monaco before O’Sullivan’s stroke of luck. Victor Martins delivered his best qualifying performance of the year to line up on the feature race front row alongside Richard Verschoor, but a crash in Turn 1 in the first race and a poor start in race two put paid to any hopes of a podium.

O’Sullivan needed a degree of pace to take advantage of the virtual safety car to the extent that he did. The Briton’s reward of 25 points on Sunday has nearly doubled the team’s total points haul, moving them onto 51 points.

It has not been the start to 2024 that ART would have hoped for, but the reigning champions will be encouraged by a stronger weekend in the Principality.

AIX prove Imola pace was not a fluke

The recently rebranded AIX Racing were understandably delighted when Dürksen finished third, on merit, in the feature race at Imola. That result represented the team’s first points in any form for 616 days, when the team was known as Charouz Racing System.

While AIX may not have had the speed for a feature race podium at Monaco, Taylor Barnard was able to qualify in 10th place, earning him reverse-grid pole for the sprint race. When known as PHM in 2023, the team did not qualify in the top 10 at any event and were thus unable to take advantage of the reverse-grid format.

Barnard’s subsequent victory in the sprint race was unsurprising given the notoriously narrow nature of the Monaco circuit. Nonetheless, Barnard had to be in the right position to take advantage of the format.

AIX’s second podium in two races will be a welcome boost to the team’s efforts, but they remain rooted to the bottom of the teams’ championship.

A difficult weekend for Maloney and Rodin

A staple of the F2 season so far has been the pace of Zane Maloney. At the season opener in Bahrain, he obtained a rare double win and achieved two further podiums since then in Melbourne and Imola.

In Monaco, the Barbadian finished seventh in the slower Group B in qualifying and therefore started 14th, limiting his chances of points in both races. Maloney’s teammate, Ritomo Miyata, was limited by engine issues and qualified in last place.

The weekend deteriorated further for Maloney in Saturday’s sprint. While looking to pass O’Sullivan for 10th at the Turn 6 hairpin on lap 22, Maloney lost part of his front wing. The Sauber junior’s lack of downforce meant he could not slow his Rodin properly and rear-ended the ART at Rascasse later in the lap. Thanks to the concertina effect, Juan Manuel Correa spun him around and Kush Maini’s Invicta stopped on track while trying to avoid the stricken Rodin, creating a track blockage that brought out the red flag.

After his collision with Dürksen in the feature race, Maloney took tenth and a single point. He has now lost the championship lead, which he had held since he won the sprint race in Bahrain, and sits third in the championship behind Aron and Hadjar.

Hauger retains his form

Dennis Hauger has been quietly impressive in the early stages of the 2024 F2 season. The former Red Bull junior, racing in his third campaign in the championship and his second with MP Motorsport, has accrued four podiums from the opening five rounds.

Having qualified eighth, Hauger started third for the sprint race and finished there, behind Barnard and Gabriel Bortoleto. In Sunday’s feature, the 21-year-old stayed out of trouble and rose to sixth while also setting the fastest lap.

At the conclusion of the round, Hauger sits fourth in the drivers’ standings, 24 points behind leader Aron. He has a couple blots on his copybook, including a crash from the effective lead in Melbourne and a scoreless round in Imola, but his 15-point haul across the two races at Monaco has kept him within striking distance of the championship lead.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency