F2 podium and points repeat for Louis at Silverstone
Louis Delétraz recorded his second FIA Formula 2 Championship podium finish of the 2020 season during an impressive weekend at Silverstone in the UK.
After three events in Austria and Hungary, Formula 1’s official feeder series headed to the home of the British Grand Prix for its fourth round, where Charouz Racing System driver Louis was confident of repeating his podium success from 2019.
The Swiss driver secured a top-10 position on the grid for Saturday’s Feature Race and further progress came on a typically frantic opening lap at the high-speed circuit.
Louis ran an Option/Prime tyre strategy and was part of a train of cars competing for the podium positions right up until the final lap. He completed the 29-lap race in P6.
That earned him six championship points and netted P3 on the reverse grid for Sunday’s Sprint Race.
The Haas F1 Team test and reserve driver remained in the hunt for victory throughout the 21-lap race and rose to P2, before being passed by a rival on an alternative tyre strategy on the final lap.
Louis crossed the line in P3 to collect another 10 championship points and add more Silverstone silverware to his vast collection.
“I’m happy with third, I couldn’t do much more,” the 23-year-old explained.
“Just before the Safety Car period I was closing on the leader as I had just started to push – but I never got a chance to attack sadly. It was an intense race and I couldn’t do much more than I did.”
This weekend’s haul of 18 championship points has elevated Louis to P7 in the Drivers’ Championship on 46 points.
“We had a good first weekend for points in Austria, then the second weekend we struggled a lot and had an issue that we had to work on,” Louis reflected.
“It seems we’re getting it together but we need to target our qualifying pace as just getting into the top 10 isn’t enough and that makes our life harder.
“The race pace is definitely there – we aren’t the quickest – but we are in the mix.”
Louis will be back in F2 action at Silverstone next weekend for the fifth round of the 2020 championship. And he has a clear target as he looks to build on this weekend’s pace.
“Now it is about actually winning races,” he said. “We’ve scored a decent amount of points in three of the four weekends, but if we can achieve a Feature Race win then we will be firmly in the title race.”
