UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > F2: Round 3

Hegewald dominates weekend

Round three of the Formula Two championship was held in Spa, Belgium – a real test for the young drivers, many of which have never seen the track before. The three Red Bull drivers hold a 1-2-3 lead in the championship. Bortolotti leads Wickens by one point, with Aleshin a further four points back.

First practice was topped by Tobias Hegewald. He set a time of two minutes 10.110 seconds to be just under half a second faster than Mikhail Aleshin with Alex Brundle a little further back in third place.

Hegewald also topped the second practice session setting an identical time to the first session. Brundle rose to second with Julian Jousse in third place.

Hegewald completed his Friday domination by taking pole for the first race. He was just under a tenth of a second faster than Andy Soucek who joined him on the front row. The second row was made up of former championship leader Robert Wickens and Jousse.

On Saturday morning Hegewald continued his domination of the weekend by securing pole for the season race. This time Wickens joined him on the front row with Soucek dropping to third to be joined on the second row by Brundle.

On Saturday afternoon, the Hegewald show continued as the nineteen year old German took a commanding victory in the first race.

At the start Wickens suffered the same problem that befell Aleshin at Brno. He got away from the line but then quickly ground to a halt. While everybody was able to avoid Aleshin, Wickens was not so lucky as he was hit from behind by Jason Moore.

After a brief safety car period to clear the wreckage of the two cars, racing resumed on lap three and very quickly Phillipp Eng, Brundle and Jolyon Palmer had a three car coming together causing Eng and Brundle to retire while Palmer dropped down the order with wing damage.

At the front Soucek tried desperately to get past Hegewald but ended up running off the circuit at Les Combes. He was able to hold onto his second place, coming back on right ahead of Jousse. This incident was to earn him a ten second penalty applied after the race.

The pace now began to spread out giving Hegewald a comfortable run to victory. Soucek crossed the line in second place but he dropped to fourth one his ten second penalty was applied. Jousse was promoted to second and inherited the championship lead after five round, that would have belonged to Soucek before the penalty.

Milos Pavlovic was promoted to third before Soucek slotted into his new finishing place in fourth, Jack Clark was fifth, Tom Gladdis scored some more points in sixth. It was due to be a British 5-6-7 with Henry Surtees coming home seventh but a last lap problem that was not picked up by the television cameras dropped the luckless Surtees down to fifteenth after taking over three minutes to complete the last lap.

Henri Karjalainen and Edoardo Piscopo were the big winners taking seventh and eighth, due reward for they provided the majority of the excitement in the race after the first three laps by fighting their way into the points from lowly grid positions.

Hegewald’s perfect weekend was completed on Sunday when he also took victory in race two, to add to his double practise success, double pole and race one win.

He was never challenged, he got away cleanly and that was the most difficult thing he had to do all afternoon, and he then proceeded to pull out half a second a lap on Soucek in second place.

With Soucek losing so much time to Hegewald attention was turned to the battle for second. Soucek was second but he was under pressure from Wickens in third. Wickens had lost a place to Brundle at the start, but was able to re-pass in a brave move at Eau Rouge on the opening lap.

Wickens was able to close the gap slightly but was eventually forced to settle for third place and six much needed points.

Brundle held on to fourth, following Wickens’ pass until lap eleven of the fifteen lap race when Pavlovic shoved his way through.

Brundle then had to defend from Jousse who was now putting his fifth place under huge pressure. Although Jousse was able to get close he was unable to pass, leaving Brundle in fifth and Jousse in sixth.

There was late passing behind in the battle for seventh. Aleshin was running ahead of Kazim Vasiliauskas until the Lithuanian got a great run across the start and finish line and completing the move on the inside at La Source.

Aleshin then clamed the final point for eighth ahead of Bortolotti and Carlos Iaconelli who completed the top ten.

Despite his double win Hegewald is still only fourth in the championship. The twenty points scored this weekend moved him up to a total of twenty two and leaves him behind new championship leader Soucek who has twenty eight points, second placed Wickens with twenty six and third placed Jousse with twenty five.

Written: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:52:24