Starting from 4th, Ayumu Iwasa struggles with the balance of his car and finishes 16th after failing to pick up the pace
Autodromo Nazionale MonzaRound 13’s Sprint Race in the FIA Formula 2 Championship took place at the Monza circuit in Italy.
In the qualifying session on Friday 9 September, Ayumu Iwasa, a Honda Formula Dream Project (HFDP) driver, pushed hard in his final attempt to set the fastest time, but went off the track on the final corner and finished the qualifying in 7th. He started from P4 in Row 2 in the Sprint Race, where a reverse grid is applied.
Under an ambient temperature of 28°C and a track temperature of 37°C, the formation lap of the Sprint Race got underway at 6:00pm. Iwasa made a good start and moved up to 2nd but was overtaken on the first corner by a car coming from the outside and fell back to 3rd. On the first lap, there was an accident at the back of the field, and the Safety Car was brought on. After the race resumed on Lap 4, Iwasa's pace did not improve, and he was gradually pulled away from 2nd. He was then passed by a trailing car at Turn 1 continuously on Laps 10 and 11 and fell down the order to 5th.
Mid-race, Iwasa's pace slowed further and his race became more difficult. On Lap 14, the car behind caught up with him at Turn 1. As he desperately tried to defend his position, he went off the track which resulted in taking a short-cut. Iwasa kept his position but was later penalised. As if suffering from a certain problem with his car, Iwasa's pace clearly dropped and from Lap 15 he was overtaken lap after lap, and by Lap 20 he had dropped to 13th. Iwasa received the chequered flag in 13th position, but a five-second time penalty was added to his time, and he finished 16th in the final result.
The car had no speed at all, and it was a very frustrating race. There was a lot of oversteer, and I was struggling, because the rear of the car was drifting both at the exit and entrance of the corners. I could barely stay on the track and nearly spun out several times. We checked the car and data after the race, but we still haven’t figured out the problem clearly. My setup was the same as my team-mate’s, but I was the only one with severe oversteer, so the crash in qualifying may have affected the monocoque or other parts of the car. The engineers and I agree that there was something wrong with the car, so we will try to find the cause and fix it for the Feature Race.
