F2 frustration for Louis in Azerbaijan

Switzerland’s Louis Delétraz suffered a frustrating weekend at the second round of the FIA Formula 2 Championship in Baku, Azerbaijan as an early Feature Race retirement and a hand injury ended his point-scoring chances.

The 21-year-old’s bid to show the pace of his Charouz Racing System package was hampered during Friday qualifying when a late red flag ended his bid to complete his second flying lap on the 6.0km Baku City Circuit. That meant he lined up in P13 for the opening Feature Race.

As one of the fastest drivers during pre-season testing, Louis was confident he could use his ADS Securities-backed car to challenge for the top places during Saturday’s 29-lap race. But his race cruelly came to an end at Turn One.

Fighting to safely negotiate his way through the left-hand turn, Louis’ car received contact on the inside from a rival and that pitched him into unavoidable contact with another car on the outside. His race was over.

To make matters worse, the hard second impact injured Louis’ left hand and he had to tackle Sunday’s Sprint Race with bruising and limited mobility.

Starting from the back of the grid, Louis battled hard during the 21-lap race and managed to make up nine places as he finished in P10. But it wasn’t the point-scoring end to the weekend that he’d been hoping for.

“I think we lost our weekend with what happened in the Feature Race. The crash yesterday was very frustrating because it wasn’t my fault at all,” Louis explained. “I knew I could do well in that race and then have a good reverse grid for race 2. But being hit and retiring made it tough for me to do what I wanted in the Sprint.

“It’s not great to start from P20 and unfortunately my pace wasn’t as strong as I would have liked because I missed so much track time yesterday. My confidence under braking wasn’t the highest and that’s pretty crucial on a street circuit like Baku.”

With only two weeks until the third round of the F2 season at Barcelona in Spain, Louis doesn’t have long to wait before he can get back into the cockpit of his Ferrari Driver Academy-liveried car and make amends.

He said: “The first two rounds haven’t produced the results I wanted. But we have the speed to put that right and we know it. It’s not like it was for me last year in F2.

“We have a strong car for Barcelona and we need to go there and do a positive performance. I have confidence that will happen.”

RACE RESULTS