Iwasa Suffers a Painful Retirement Due to a Problem with His Car
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, 1 September, Ayumu Iwasa, a Honda Formula Dream Project (HFDP) driver finished 15th. He did not achieve the desired pace in his car in the first set of attempts and came out 13th. He was then unable to try in the second set due to traffic congestion towards the end of the session and finished 15th. As a result, he started from P15 on Row 8 of the grid in the Sprint Race.
Under an ambient temperature of 27℃ and a track temperature of 36℃, the formation lap of the Sprint Race got underway at 2:15pm. In a chaotic battle for position from the start to the first turn, Iwasa lost a position and finished the first lap in 16th. In the opening lap, a car stopped on the track, which brought on the Safety Car from Lap 2. The race resumed on Lap 5, and on Lap 6 one of the leaders with tyre problems slowed down. Consequently, Iwasa moved up to 15th and closed the gap to the car in front, looking for a chance to overtake.
With a train of cars formed around him, Iwasa was unable to pass the car in front and continued to run in 15th. However, on Lap 11 he slowed down as he had a problem with his car. And on Lap 12 he made a pit stop after dropping several places. It was difficult to repair the car in the pit, and the HFDP driver got out of the car to retire.
After his disappointing retirement, Iwasa retained 3rd place in the championship, but is now just three points away from 4th place.
Exhaust problems caused leaks. This damaged the surrounding wiring and electrical system and the car lost power. The problem itself can only be described as bad luck, because it’s a difficult area to identify in advance. I can’t say I had a good pace from the start and it was continuously difficult to overtake. We wanted to see what would happen afterwards, but unfortunately we had the problem.
A bad trend has been continuing and that’s because we haven’t been able to display our performance to the full. I believe if I and the team do what we need to do thoroughly, we’ll get results. So, I’ll refresh my mind and get ready for the Feature Race. Of course, I haven’t given up, so I’ll prepare well and aim to get points.
