Season ‘22 on the horizon
The 2022 FIA F2 season kicks off at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit this weekend, back to where the official pre-season testing took place two weeks ago.
Sakhir’s been good to Liam in the past twelve months... winning on F2 debut last year and setting the fastest lap time of the recent three-days of testing. Could there be a repeat victory on Sunday?
Even if Liam’s testing pace doesn’t translate into the season, his team principal Trevor Carlin is confident he has other attributes that will make him a threat.
Phenomenal racecraft
“What excited me most about Liam is his phenomenal racecraft,” he said during testing to media.
“He’s one of the strongest, toughest racers I’ve ever seen. Sometimes he went over the mark a little bit last year, but the rest of the time he’s a super fighter and we at Carlin love motor racing and when you see a real racing driver fighting and battling, that’s what we love. Because we enjoy watching it, and having him in our team is going to be really exciting.”
Tost says Liam will drive for AphaTauri this year
For 2022, it is mandated that F1 teams field a young driver in selected opening practice sessions. AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost has confirmed that Liam will be their driver.
“It will be Liam Lawson.
Of course this is also a decision from Red Bull. Currently the drivers are Liam and [Juri] Vips. I think that Vips will drive for Red Bull Racing and Lawson for Scuderia AlphaTauri.
“He was also testing with us last year in Abu Dhabi. He did a good job.“He is driving this year in Formula 2 [with Carlin] and then we will see what are the next steps.”
On top in pre-season testing
Fastest in official testing and looking to maximise both tyre runs this weekend, Liam is excited to start a new season and return to Bahrain with a new team.
“Really happy with the progress we made over the three days of testing. We made a lot of changes to the car and I feel that we have a lot of really good data to analyse for the first round.”
“From my side learning to drive with a new team has given me more experience as well. I’m excited. The test went really good.”
“I would say that the goal is to have a strong start to the season and then mostly to be consistent over the year and put ourselves in the position of being able to fight for the championship in the last few races. If we can get to that point then it will be good.”
Bahrain - Round 1
“I think the thing we have to do this week is maximise both tyres in the race runs. Making sure that we are able to be competitive on both tyres. In the Feature Race we have to use both so being good on them is one of the main targets.”
“I like Bahrain as a track a lot, I always enjoy driving here, done quite a lot of testing now because of the post and pre-season testing. It’s also a very interesting track in the way that it is so aggressive on tyres. So out of the whole calendar this is the one where you’ve got to be right on it with the tyre saving.”
“The goal is to start strongly, have a good Qualifying and maximise points in the Feature race. So put ourselves in a position to go forward from this round.
Meanwhile, in the build-up to Bahrain Liam has been back into training and simulator work.
“Back with my trainer Matt who I haven’t been with for a couple of months now so it’s back in to work!”
What will the new weekend format look like?
Fridays will remain the same as they have for all five seasons of Formula 2 to date, with one 45-minute Free Practice session, followed by a straight 30-minute shoot-out to pole.
Qualifying results will determine the starting grid for the Feature Race on Sunday. Taking place before the Formula 1 Grand Prix, F2’s Feature Race will be 60 minutes of wheel-to- wheel action with mandatory pitstops.
Meanwhile, the grid for the Sprint Race on the Saturday will be determined by reversing the top 10 drivers from Qualifying. A shorter 45-minute affair, the Sprint Race does not feature compulsory pitstops.
How many points are available in each session?
The driver who takes pole position following the final classification of Friday’s Qualifying session will now be awarded two points, down from four in 2021. As has always been the case, the driver who starts on reverse grid pole in the Sprint Race will not be awarded any additional points.
For the Sprint Race, the top eight classified drivers will now be awarded 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3,
2 and 1 points respectively.
As the longer race with mandatory pitstops, Sunday’s Feature Race is considered as
F2’s main event. The starting grid is decided by the results of Qualifying and there are substantially more points on offer. The top
10 finishers will score 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points respectively. This point allocation remains the same as in previous years.
In each race, one point will be awarded to the driver who achieves the fastest lap time, providing he is in the top 10 positions of the final race classification.
Has the tyre allocation changed?
Yes. Each driver will be allocated five sets of dry-weather tyres per weekend. They will have three “prime” specifi- cation sets and two of the “option” specification. This is down from six in 2021. Each driver will also be provided with three sets of wet-weather tyres.