2018 San Marino GP : Preview

The start of a three-race European leg begins at a country that doesn’t have a suitable racetrack, so their Italian neighbours get a second race, located at a circuit that has established itself on the FF1M calendar. Since its debut in 2015, teams and drivers have thoroughly enjoyed the fast, flowing nature of Mugello with the slowest point still being above the speed limits on the Autostrade. It is also the first home race for the championship leader, but his points gap could’ve been even higher.

Kimminen capitalises on mistakes and unreliability

After having his cage rattled by his teammate at Melbourne, reigning champion Vaino Kimminen returned to the top step of the podium at Kyalami after a patient and intelligent drive on a circuit that was almost impossible to overtake on. He made up three places during the first stint of the race including a daring overtaking move on Catharina Caracciola on the left after Mineshaft straight. He then jumped Alessandro Farina after the first round of pitstops and caught up to Sebastian Vettel during the second and third stints. The final round of pitstops then produced a mixed bag for Kimminen as an attempt to overcut Vettel resulted in him being jumped back by Farina, although Vettel’s fine race at the front ended cruelly after another suspension failure. Farina’s time in the lead only lasted another two laps before being pressured into a mistake and losing the lead to Kimminen, who went on to take his first win of the season and sit just two points behind the Italian.

Although three stops were the order of the day at Kyalami, one driver went rogue by attempting either an ambitious one-stop strategy or a two-stop strategy with a long first stint, but seeing how the strategy would work out ended up remaining unknown as Lewis Hamilton crashed out in the opening stages, continuing a torrid start to the season for Mitchell with no points on the board. Six other teams share this unenviable stat including another team running a 16C chassis, that being GRM with their hard tyres proving to be the main culprit. They have promised to run softer compounds for this meeting which should at least keep them above waters when the 13 teams compete in pre-qualifying with the running order being as follows:

Paddock News

• Judd have brought their first of four free engine upgrades this season, bringing new ICE, ERS, and CE components. In recognition of this, Willows Racing have announced sponsorship from an influencer and OnlyFans member specialising in mechanical engineering whose profile tagline is “Let the drive see the shaft.”
• Mugen put forward a request to the AFIA to change the ERS limit for their customer team (Mitchell). A vote was put forward to other manufacturers with a rule being unanimously passed for all manufacturers to have one free ERS limit change during the season.

A two-horse race or a fantastic five?

With Gojira and Tornado having won a race each and their drivers scoring points in the opening two races, the initial scene has been set for a potential repeat of the 2013 season where the two teams battled it out for the Teams Championship. However, Shake ‘n’ Bake and FJR are lurking in background with the latter team having taken a pole position, and if they sort their reliability problems out, Andrew could still feature at the front. FJR in particular have previously gone well at Mugello with Kevin Magnussen’s brilliant maiden win in 2016 from 15th on the grid and Caracciola taking her only career podium finish so far in last season’s race. Caracciola also holds the lap record at the circuit although that promises to be broken this weekend. Towards the back of the field, Monolith have yet to qualify for a race this season despite using softer tyres compared to the likes of Galaxy and Tildesley. Will Mugello see Esteban Ocon finally make his race debut?

Support Races

The third meeting of the FF2M championship will also take place at Mugello with Lando Norris continuing his brilliant start to the season with another perfect score in the Kyalami feature race, followed by 4th in the sprint, which saw Bram de Boer and Shake ‘n’ Bake Junior on the top step of the podium. As a result of their two drivers consistently scoring, STV Racing hold a very healthy lead in the Teams Championship ahead of Willows Junior, who once again had a decent outing at Kyalami despite Daisuke Sekiya being massacred by Pato O’Ward in the sprint race. In fact, both races saw pile-ups through the first corner with Pascal Wehrlein and Colton Herta not making it as far as the second corner in both races, raising question marks about the venue’s suitability to host races.

Coverage Details

Race highlights will be broadcast on Sunday at 16:00 GMT with FJR’s James Brickles and Tornado’s Tobias Wolff in the commentary box.

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