Open Wheel Racing

5th August 20206th August 2020

F2 Great Britain preview: Silverstone reset for Shwartzman and Ilott

Formula 2 is back this weekend for the fifth round of the 2020 championship, returning to Silverstone in support of the F1 70^th Anniversary Grand Prix.

For title protagonists Robert Shwartzman and Callum Ilott, revisiting Silverstone will provide a much-needed second chance at the circuit after a trying round for them both last weekend.

For Shwartzman, who had previously only finished outside the top four once this year, the British Grand Prix weekend was little short of a nightmare. What began with a lowly qualifying position of 18^th for the feature race ended with a best finish of 13^th in the sprint race and no points scored for the championship leader.

Shwartzman’s pain was lessened somewhat by Ilott stalling on the feature race grid and spinning out of contention for the sprint race victory, meaning the UNI-Virtuosi driver was unable to capitalise on Shwartzman’s struggles and snatch away the championship lead. However, Ilott’s recovery to fifth in the feature race moved him to within eight points of Shwartzman.

Robert Shwartzman, Prema (Courtesy of Prema Racing)

Shwartzman and Ilott’s struggles mean they’ll now be driving with renewed focus on the chasing pack behind them.

In particular, Christian Lundgaard underlined the pace he’s been showing all season with fourth place in the feature race and second in the sprint race last weekend, putting him just four points behind Ilott and twelve behind Shwartzman. Another strong finish ahead of his rivals this weekend could well see Lundgaard leave Silverstone as the new championship leader.

The top two will also be keenly aware of Hitech’s Nikita Mazepin. The Russian came alive at Silverstone last weekend, taking his first F2 win in the feature race and battling up to fifth in race two, and certainly has the pace to be a threat again this time out.

What’s more, Dan Ticktum is lurking just one point behind Mazepin after taking his own maiden victory in the last sprint race. However, Ticktum’s three podium visits so far have all come in sprint races, so he’ll need to translate that clear speed to a top three in the feature races if he’s going to start troubling the title contenders.

Nikita Mazepin, Hitech (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Just behind the top five, a kind of “Class B” is forming between Guanyu Zhou, Louis Deletraz, Felipe Drugovich, Mick Schumacher and Yuki Tsunoda. While their results over the season so far haven’t kept them in touch with the title battle, they’re all still formidable over a race weekend and each proved this last time out in Silverstone.

Zhou, Deletraz and Tsunoda were all on the podium across last weekend, while Drugovich took pole for the feature race and Schumacher was in contention for the victory before his tyres gave up on him in the final stages.

All of them bar Drugovich are still looking for their first win this season, and given the pace they’ve already shown around Silverstone, that could come for any of them this weekend.

Yuki Tsunoda, Carlin (Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool)

4th August 2020

Indianapolis 500 U-turn, closes doors to fans

The 104^th running of the Indianapolis 500 will take place without fans for the first time in its history. This will arguably be the biggest impact “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” has seen since the series of cancellations between 1942 and 1945 during America’s intervention in World War Two.

The US has been significantly effected by the Coronavirus pandemic, and while federal laws try their best to limit the spread of the disease, state laws can take matters into their own hands. It seems this is what has happened.

A few weeks ago, it had been reported that the 500 was to happen with spectator capacity capped at 50%. The speedway then lowered that number to 25%, releasing an 88-page document detailing the safety procedures that were to be implemented.

The seating capacity of the speedway holds upward of 250,000 people. Given this, the upward trajectory of fans would have been close to 62,500 people, not including staff, teams, media and drivers.

The Indiana State Department of Health on Tuesday reported an additional 836 cases and 14 deaths from Coronavirus, bringing the state’s totals to 69,255 cases and 2,794 deaths.

Indiana’s seven-day moving average positivity rate was 7.3% compared to earlier averages of 5%. Therefore, discussions were held between local and state governments and the speedway took the decision to remove the prospect of fans in the speedway so as to mitigate the risk of transmission.

Chris Owens / IndyCar Media

Roger Penske, owner of the circuit, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the U-turn was:

“The toughest business decision I’ve ever made in my life.” “We didn’t buy the Speedway for one year, we bought it for generations to come, and it’s important to our reputation to do the right thing,”

This will be financially devastating, as the circuit makes most of its revenue from the 500 and will inevitably come under economic pressure as a consequence.

Penske continued by saying: “We need to be safe and smart about this, obviously we want full attendance, but we don’t want to jeopardize the health and safety of our fans and the community. We also don’t want to jeopardize the ability to hold a successful race.”

It was clear how the situation would unfold when IU Health, the state’s largest health care system and a partner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, publicly criticised the attendance of fans at the raceway.

“Until we sustain better control of this virus and its spread,” IU iterated, “we strongly encourage IMS to consider an alternative to running the Indy 500 with fans in August.”

This follows a wave of schedule alterations, including the cancellation of Portland, Laguna Seca and the postponement of the Mid-Ohio race scheduled for the weekend of the 8th August, with many races including at Road America and Iowa already holding races with fans in attendance, but at a reduced capacity.

Tim Holle / IndyCar MediaThe 500 is still scheduled to take place from Memorial weekend to August 23rd.

Feature image courtesy of Joe Skibinksi / IndyCar Media

3rd August 2020

Listen: PitCast interview with Sabré Cook

In the latest special episode of the PitCast, we caught up with Indy Pro 2000 and W Series driver Sabré Cook.

Fresh off the back of the second round of the Indy Pro 2000 season at Mid-Ohio, we spoke to Sabré about her Road to Indy journey, her W Series goals and involvement in their esports league, and her work with the Renault F1 team and Infiniti Engineering Academy last year.

Sabré is currently competing part-time in the 2020 Indy Pro 2000 championship with Team Benik and was due to race in the second season of the W Series before its cancellation earlier in the year.

You can listen to the latest episode of the PitCast below, and also here on YouTube. Catch up on all our past episodes here.

2nd August 20202nd August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Smolyar loses sprint race win to post-race penalty

Aleksandr Smolyar has lost the victory he took in the Formula 3 sprint race at Silverstone on Sunday following a post-race time penalty for weaving, handing the win to David Beckmann.

Smolyar’s driving while defending the lead from Beckmann late in the race was noted by the stewards on lap 16, and the Russian was repeatedly told on team radio to stop weaving. The stewards elected to investigate the issue after the race, and have since awarded Smolyar a five-second penalty which demotes him to sixth.

The penalty promotes Trident’s Beckmann to his second win of the season, with Clement Novalak second and Alex Peroni third. Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant move up to fourth and fifth respectively.

The revised result means Sargeant is now 17 points behind Piastri in the standings, while Vesti moves ahead of Liam Lawson into fourth. Smolyar drops a place to tenth behind Novalak.

Revised race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	David Beckmann	Trident	15
2	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing	12
3	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing	10
4	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	8
5	Logan Sargeant (FL)	Prema Racing	8
6	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	5
7	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	4
8	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	3
9	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	2
10	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	1
11	Lirim Zendelli	Trident
12	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin Buzz Racing
13	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
14	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
15	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System
16	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
17	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
18	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
19	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
20	Max Fewtrell	Hitech Grand Prix
21	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
22	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
23	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
24	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
25	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
26	Olli Caldwell	Trident
27	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
28	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
Ret.	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing
Ret.	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System

2nd August 20208th August 2020

F2 Great Britain: Ticktum controls Silverstone sprint race

Dan Ticktum took his first Formula 2 victory with a measured drive in the Silverstone sprint race.

Ticktum started the reverse grid race from pole. As he got away well, second-placed starter Felipe Drugovich was swamped off the line and dropped to fourth behind Christian Lundgaard and Louis Deletraz. Further back, Callum Ilott made contact with Yuki Tsunoda and spun the Carlin out of the race, earning himself a five second penalty.

Ticktum managed the opening phase of the race by breaking out of DRS range of Lundgaard by lap 4, then opening that to two seconds by lap 10.

Callum Ilott / Scuderia Ferrari Press Office

Further back, Ilott was making rapid progress through the field as he tried to overcome his penalty. On lap 7 he passed Drugovich for fourth, then drove past both Deletraz and Lundgaard on lap 13 to get up into second.

Ilott then set about on a series of fast laps to overcome the two-second gap to Ticktum. But on lap 16, Ilott’s push resulted in him spinning out of the race at the final corner.

The safety car was brought out to recover Ilott’s car, and ART took the opportunity to pit Lundgaard from second for mediums. Although the stop dropped Lundgaard down to fifth, his faster tyres allowed him to get back up to third at the restart by passing Nikita Mazepin and Guanyu Zhou.

Christian Lundgaard, ART (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

On the final lap Lundgaard then passed Deletraz to regain second, with only half a second separating him from Ticktum. But Lundgaard ultimately didn’t have enough time to catch the DAMS, and Ticktum led him and Deletraz across the line.

Zhou looked set to finish fourth but ran out of grip on the final lap and span out of the points. Jehan Daruvala inherited fourth place with Mazepin fifth and Drugovich sixth. Nobuharu Matsushita and Jack Aitken rounded out the points in seventh and eighth respectively.

Championship leader Robert Shwartzman finished the sprint race outside the points in P13, capping off a troubled weekend at Silverstone. However, he remains in the lead of the championship over Ilott after the Briton’s retirement. Lundgaard’s podium moves him four points behind Ilott in third, while Ticktum’s win elevates him above Zhou to fifth in the standings.

The top two in the teams’ championship remain unchanged, with UNI-Virtuosi and Prema both failing to score in the sprint race and staying on 124 and 122 points respectively. ART have closed the gap in third with 103 points. Find the full Formula 2 drivers’ and teams’ standings here.

Formula 2 returns to Silverstone next week in support of the Formula 1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

(Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	15
2	Christian Lundgaard (FL)	ART Grand Prix	14
3	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	10
4	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	8
5	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech Grand Prix	6
6	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	4
7	Nobuharu Matsushita	MP Motorsport	2
8	Jack Aitken	Campos Racing	1
9	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi
10	Marcus Armstrong	ART Grand Prix
11	Artem Markelov	HWA Racelab
12	Marino Sato	Trident
13	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Racing
14	Mick Schumacher	Prema Racing
15	Guilherme Samaia	Campos Racing
16	Roy Nissany	Trident
17	Pedro Piquet	Charouz Racing System
18	Giuliano Alesi	HWA Racelab
19	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech Grand Prix
Ret.	Sean Gelael	DAMS
Ret.	Callum Ilott	UNI-Virtuosi
Ret.	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin

2nd August 20202nd August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Smolyar fights off Beckmann for first F3 win

Aleksandr Smolyar took his first Formula 3 win in the Silverstone sprint race, fighting off a rapid David Beckmann in the closing laps.

Smolyar got a good start from his reverse grid pole to hold the lead from Beckmann on the first lap. By lap 4 the Russian was able to just break out of DRS range of Beckmann, but this gap was lost on the following lap when Igor Fraga stopped on track and brought out the safety car.

At the restart Smolyar and Beckmann again held position, but Beckmann was able to stick with the ART and prevent Smolyar breaking more than a second away. After setting the fastest lap, Beckmann made his first move for the lead on lap 14, diving to the inside at Stowe. Beckmann momentarily took first, but Smolyar was able to repass him immediately.

Beckmann tried the same move on the following lap, but was again unsuccessful and fell back from Smolyar into the clutches of third-placed Clement Novalak. Beckmann managed to recover and get within two tenths of Smolyar in the final laps, but ultimately was unable to find a way around the ART. Smolyar eventually crossed the line with just half a second in hand over Beckmann, with Novalak close behind in third.

David Beckmann, Trident (Bryn Lennon / Getty Images)

Alex Peroni finished fourth, capping off a strong weekend at Silverstone. Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant took fifth and sixth for Prema, with Sargeant also taking the points for fastest lap. Vesti and Sargeant were able to take advantage of technical woes for their championship rival and teammate Oscar Piastri, who was forced to retire on lap 11 when his DRS flap stuck open.

Saturday’s feature race winner Liam Lawson finished seventh after a fierce battle with the Premas ahead. Theo Pourchaire, Richard Verschoor and Jake Hughes rounded out the top ten.

Despite logging his first retirement of the year, Piastri still leads the championship after round four with 94 points over Sargeant’s 76. Beckmann’s podium keeps him in third place ahead of Lawson. Smolyar’s sprint race win moves him up to ninth.

In the teams’ standings, Prema have extended their lead over ART to 117.5 points. Trident remain in third with only 8.5 points between them and ART, while Hitech move up to fourth following Lawson’s win this weekend. Find the full Formula 3 drivers’ and teams’ standings here.

Formula 3 returns to Silverstone next weekend in support of the Formula 1 70^th Anniversary Grand Prix.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	15
2	David Beckmann	Trident	12
3	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing	10
4	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing	8
5	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	6
6	Logan Sargeant (FL)	Prema Racing	7
7	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	4
8	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	3
9	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	2
10	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	1
11	Lirim Zendelli	Trident
12	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin Buzz Racing
13	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
14	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
15	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System
16	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
17	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
18	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
19	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
20	Max Fewtrell	Hitech Grand Prix
21	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
22	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
23	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
24	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
25	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
26	Olli Caldwell	Trident
27	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
28	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
Ret.	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing
Ret.	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System

1st August 20201st August 2020

F2 Great Britain: Mazepin storms to maiden feature race win

Hitech’s Nikita Mazepin took his maiden Formula 2 win in the Silverstone feature race, prevailing over a rotation of challengers behind.

The race started with a slow launch for polesitter Felipe Drugovich, allowing Mick Schumacher to take the lead into Turn 1 while Mazepin jumped Christian Lundgaard for third. Drugovich, starting on the hard tyres compared to the medium runners around him, continued to struggle for pace through lap 1 and dropped to fourth behind Mazepin and Lundgaard.

Mazepin quickly got his own tyres up to temperature, closing up to Schumacher on lap 3 and then passing the Prema for the lead shortly after. By lap 5, Mazepin had already broken the DRS range to Schumacher, while Schumacher himself seemed to drop back towards Lundgaard.

Mick Schumacher, Prema (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Mazepin and Schumacher made their stops for hard tyres on lap 8, followed by Lundgaard a lap later. Although Schumacher gained time on Mazepin in the pitlane, he struggled more than the Russian when making his way through traffic.

On lap 12 Schumacher lost half a second passing Guilherme Samaia, then got stuck behind Artem Markelov. On lap 15 Lundgaard overtook Schumacher for net second, while Louis Deletraz closed to four tenths behind him.

Deletraz eventually passed Schumacher on lap 24, which prompted a fall through the order as the German lost out to Guanyu Zhou, Yuki Tsunoda and Callum Ilott over the next two laps.

Deletraz didn’t stay in third for long, being passed himself by Zhou and Tsunoda on lap 25. Zhou and Tsunoda were running the alternate strategy with hard tyres, and lapping much faster than those on mediums. On lap 27 Zhou quickly caught and passed Lundgaard for second, while Tsunoda demoted the ART off the podium on the final lap.

But despite their pace advantage, Zhou and Tsunoda ran out of laps to catch Mazepin and had to settle for second and third respectively behind the Hitech.

Lundgaard finished fourth, while Ilott recovered from stalling on the formation lap and starting from the pitlane to take fifth ahead of Deletraz. Polesitter Drugovich suffered a slow pit stop and eventually finished down in seventh ahead of Dan Ticktum. Schumacher finished ninth, and Nobuharu Matsushita took the final point in tenth after passing Jehan Daruvala through the final corner of the last lap.

Felipe Drugovich, MP Motorsport (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech	25
2	Guanyu Zhou (FL)	UNI-Virtuosi	20
3	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin	15
4	Christian Lundgaard	ART	12
5	Callum Ilott	UNI-Virtuosi	10
6	Louis Deletraz	Charouz	8
7	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	6
8	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	4
9	Mick Schumacher	Prema	2
10	Nobuharu Matsushita	MP Motorsport	1
11	Pedro Piquet	Charouz
12	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin
13	Jack Aitken	Campos
14	Robert Shwartzman	Prema
15	Sean Gelael	DAMS
16	Marcus Armstrong	ART
17	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech
18	Artem Markelov	HWA
19	Giuliano Alesi	HWA
20	Marino Sato	Trident
21	Guilherme Samaia	Campos
Ret.	Roy Nissany	Trident

1st August 20201st August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Lawson holds off Premas for feature race win

Liam Lawson took his second win of the Formula 3 season at the Silverstone feature race, seeing off the Premas of Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant in a race fraught with incidents.

Lawson started from second behind polesitter Sargeant. Although Sargeant held first off the line, Lawson was close enough to harry him throughout the opening lap and make a lunge around the outside of Stowe to steal the lead.

After a brief interruption on lap 4, when Matteo Nannini slowed on track and brought out a Virtual Safety Car, Lawson began pulling away from Sargeant. The American driver then dropped back into the clutches of teammate Piastri, who demoted Sargeant to third on lap 7.

Piastri was better able to keep pace with Lawson than Sargeant, closing to within half a second by lap 9. On lap 11 Piastri drew alongside Lawson under DRS and looked set to take first place, but the Australian ran wide over the kerbs and couldn’t complete the move.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Bryn Lennon / Getty Images)

With Piastri right on his tail, Lawson was handed a saving grace shortly after when the safety car was deployed for Bent Viscaal, who spun after contact with Ben Barnicoat through Luffield and collected Jack Doohan’s HWA.

The safety car remained out for four laps, but was then redeployed almost immediately when Olli Caldwell spun in the middle of the pack and was hit heavily by Lukas Dunner and Max Fewtrell.

With Caldwell’s rear wing and suspension across the track, the race went on to end under the safety car, preserving Lawson’s first place over Piastri and Sargeant.

Jake Hughes finished fourth ahead of the third Prema of Frederik Vesti, with Alex Peroni climbing up from 18^th on the grid to take sixth. Sebastian Fernandez finished seventh, Clement Novalak took eighth and the fastest lap, David Beckmann was ninth, and Aleksandr Smolyar took the reverse grid pole for the tomorrow in tenth.

Logan Sargeant, Prema (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Liam Lawson	Hitech	25
2	Oscar Piastri	Prema	18
3	Logan Sargeant	Prema	15
4	Jake Hughes	HWA	12
5	Frederik Vesti	Prema	10
6	Alex Peroni	Campos	8
7	Sebastian Fernandez	ART	6
8	Clement Novalak (FL)	Carlin	6
9	David Beckmann	Trident	2
10	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART	1
11	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
12	Theo Pourchaire	ART
13	Lirim Zendelli	Trident
14	Calan Williams	Jenzer
15	Igor Fraga	Charouz
16	Dennis Hauger	Hitech
17	Roman Stanek	Charouz
18	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA
19	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer
20	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin
21	Cameron Das	Carlin
22	Sophia Floersch	Campos
23	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer
24	Alessio Deledda	Campos
25	David Schumacher	Charouz
Ret.	Olli Caldwell	Trident
Ret.	Max Fewtrell	Hitech
Ret.	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
Ret.	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
Ret.	Jack Doohan	HWA

31st July 2020

F3 Great Britain preview: can ART or Trident halt Prema’s dominance?

Formula 3 returns this weekend at historic Silverstone, for the fourth round of the 2020 season.

As things stand coming into Great Britain, championship leader Oscar Piastri has begun to break into a dominant position in the title fight. On 76 points so far, he is more than a feature race victory ahead of his nearest rival, teammate Logan Sargeant.

Apart from one eighth place in the first Austria sprint race, Piastri has consistently finished in the top five in every race so far this season, including a double podium last time out in Hungary. Meanwhile, Sargeant has yet to take victory this year, while third-placed driver Theo Pourchaire didn’t score points at all in the first round of the season.

David Beckmann, Trident (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Piastri’s rivals might take some heart from the fact that Silverstone was one of the few rounds Prema didn’t dominate last year, with Juri Vips and Leonardo Pulcini taking both victories for Hitech Grand Prix.

Hitech don’t look to be the same contenders they were last year, despite Liam Lawson winning the first sprint race of the year in Austria and Dennis Hauger finishing third in Hungary. However, Trident and ART have both been close challengers to Prema in 2020 and will be pushing to deal any blow they can to the Italian team this weekend.

One driver in particular who could be a real headache for Prema and Piastri is David Beckmann, who comes to Silverstone off the back of his first F3 win in the Hungary sprint race. With two further podiums already to his name, Beckmann is also one of only three drivers—alongside Piastri and Richard Verschoor—to score in every race so far this season.

Aleksandr Smolyar, ART (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

As for ART, Pourchaire underlined his own championship credentials in Hungary by becoming the only repeat race winner of the season so far. The young Frenchman has a bit of ground to make up after his slow start to the campaign, but clearly has the speed to challenge for the podium this weekend.

But it’s not just Pourchaire carrying ART’s hopes. The French team has plenty more talent in its lineup in Sebastian Fernandez and Aleksandr Smolyar, both of whom have taken a feature race pole this year.

So far luck hasn’t been on their side, with Fernandez and Smolyar both retiring early from their respective pole position starts. But if either of them can marry up another strong qualifying performance with a clean race on Saturday, there’s no reason they can’t join the fight at the front with their teammate.

31st July 2020

F2 Great Britain preview: can Shwartzman break free at Silverstone?

Formula 2 returns this weekend at Silverstone for the fourth round of the 2020 campaign.

Prema driver and Ferrari protege Robert Shwartzman will come into the weekend full of confidence, after becoming the championship’s only repeat winner so far last time out in Hungary.

With 18 points in hand over the next-best driver Callum Ilott, Shwartzman’s goal at Silverstone will be to build that gap even further and break free of the chasing pack. If he can keep up the momentum now, there will be little his rivals can do to stop Shwartzman asserting his dominance over the title as he did in Formula 3 last year.

Ilott will of course be the first of many drivers hoping to disrupt Shwartzman’s title challenge this weekend. Since winning the first race of the season, Ilott’s own campaign has been patchy by comparison, with only one further podium to his name so far.

A win on home soil this weekend will easily put Ilott back in the mix, and he should be well-placed to do so as his UNI-Virtuosi team won last year’s Silverstone feature race with Luca Ghiotto.

Callum Ilott, UNI-Virtuosi (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Behind Shwartzman and Ilott, there’s a fierce battle developing over third place in the standings. Christian Lundgaard currently holds the position with 43 points, but Mick Schumacher, Dan Ticktum and Marcus Armstrong are all within nine points of the Dane.

Although Lundgaard is quite a way adrift of Shwartzman, he is still likely to be a threat this weekend. Prior to Hungary, where he failed to score in either race, Lundgaard had been on a run of top-six finishes culminating in his sprint race win in Austria.

If Lundgaard can put his Hungaroring disappointment behind him, he’s shown he has the pace to be a serious title threat this year.

Schumacher comes to Silverstone on a good run of form, having taken a double podium at the last round in Hungary. However, he’ll need to make a much bigger step forward this weekend if he wants to stay in contention for the title and an F1 shot next year, as he is so far yet to outscore Shwartzman in any race this season.

Meanwhile, Ticktum has also displayed plenty of ability in his F2 debut, although has yet to claim his first win in the series. A challenger in sprint races in particular, the DAMS driver will be one to watch this weekend for sure.