Louis finds improved F2 speed and confidence in Austria
Switzerland’s Louis Delétraz was encouraged by the upturn in FIA Formula 2 Championship pace that he discovered in Austria this weekend, despite not being able to translate his speed into points.
The F2 rookie was relishing the chance to race on the familiar 4.32km Spielberg circuit after enduring a frustrating run of results on unfamiliar street circuits recently. And he immediately discovered some encouraging speed during Friday’s qualifying session – despite not being able to find an optimum set-up.
Securing P11 on the grid for the Feature Race marked Louis’ best qualifying performance of the season and he went on to set a fastest lap of the race on lap 9 with a 1m 17.572s, despite his #3 car displaying some rear-end damage after early contact at Turn 2.
Louis’ charge towards the point-scoring positions continued as the 40-lap race unfolded and he briefly took P12 from Jordan King before a costly lock up let the Englishman back through with the help of DRS.
Unfortunately for Louis, he wasn’t quite able to re-challenge for the position and chasing King in dirty air for the next 10 laps caused his tyres to degrade quickly and he was powerless to avoid dropping down the order and finishing in P17.
“The final result was a shame because my pace was definitely good and an improvement on the past races,” ADS Securities-supported Louis explained. “Getting blocked behind King didn’t help my soft tyres to hold on and they were taking the whole effort in the corners. I had massive degradation and I literally went from a possible top eight to 17th in ten laps. But it was the first time this year that I’ve been able to fight for those positions so that’s a positive to take and learn from.”
Today’s Sprint Race started with Louis making another fast start and climbing as high as P14 in the early stages but he lost some valuable places as he tried to avoid another car under braking for Turn 2. That dropped Louis back down to P17, but his determination came to the fore as he fought his way back up to P13 as the race ended.
“I didn’t want to lose time following Sette Camara so I tried to pass him under braking at T2,” Louis explained. “He defended really late on me and I had to steer as I hit the brakes to avoid him. I was going down from 300kmh and I couldn’t avoid locking up the front. I managed to save it but went off the track and lost time.”
Louis was disappointed that he wasn’t able to turn his improving speed at Spielberg into the point-scoring finishes that he desperately wants this season. But he insists the progress he made in Austria has finally given him and his Racing Engineering team a solid platform that they can continue to build on.
He said: “The race pace was stronger and there was a definite improvement in qualifying as well, even without the perfect set up, so that gives me confidence. We came to Austria starting from a new base and we were able to improve on that.
“We go to Silverstone next weekend with some positives which we’ve never had before. There’s been a good sequence of connections for us this weekend and I’ll be working flat out to build on that in the UK.”
