Formula 2 drivers Zane Maloney and Jak Crawford have both had races this season ended by reliability issues with the series’ new Dallara F2 2024. Ahead of this weekend’s round at Spa in Belgium, the pair told Feeder Series that all drivers have had their fair share of problems.

By Steven Walton

Earlier this year, DAMS driver Crawford had his Bahrain feature race ended by a reliability issue, while a further problem in Imola prevented him from setting a representative time in qualifying.

Rodin Motorsport driver Maloney failed to score points during the Austria round, retiring from the feature race with a problem. “Situations out of my control compromised our races,” he later wrote on Instagram.

Asked about reliability and its role in this year’s championship at a pre-event media roundtable Thursday afternoon, Maloney told Feeder Series that problems were always going to happen at different stages in the year.

“Everyone has it at some stage of the year. In certain ways, I can’t really tell you how many points each driver on the grid has lost because of it, but if you go into detail on that you’ll be there forever,” he said.

“Of course, there’s a difference between reliability and a mistake from the team or the driver. There’s many different things that can go into it.”

Maloney added, “I just focus with the team on doing what we can to allow [reliability issues] not to happen.”

Crawford agreed that all drivers had “had their fair share” of problems. “It also depends on what kind of sessions you have it in,” he said.

“I had some issue[s] in … the Bahrain feature race and Imola qualifying which were of course big opportunities, so [I] lost points there, but it’s a bit the same for everyone,” he said.

Crawford also pointed out that championship leader Isack Hadjar had faced problems. The Campos driver had technical issues at both races in Jeddah earlier this year.

“So at the end of the day, it sort of happens to everyone and everyone’s running their equipment to the limit and sometimes these things happen unfortunately,” Crawford said.

Ahead of Spa, Maloney sits fourth in the championship standings with 101 points, while Crawford is in seventh with 84 points.

Header photo credit: Andy Hone / Stake F1 Team