MP's Brazilian finished the ninth round of the Formula 2 season with a 3rd place in the sprint and a 4th position in the main race. Even with the 'fat' leadership maintained, Drugovich highlighted the need to win again in the category
Formula 2 concluded its ninth round of the season this weekend in Paul Ricard. After finishing Saturday's sprint race in third position, Felipe Drugovich climbed the field again in Sunday's main race, finishing fourth.
With an extra point added by the fastest lap of the race in France, the Brazilian from MP managed to keep the 39 points of distance in the leadership of the drivers' championship: 173 against 134 from Théo Pourchaire, vice-placed.
But it has to be said: it's been a long time since Drugovich won this season. His last victory was on May 28th, in the main race of the F2 series at the Monaco circuit. That's why the Brazilian himself recognizes: despite the good results, he needs to win again soon.
"I know it is necessary to win again and I hope this happens as soon as possible. But I am happy with the results of the weekend. We improved a lot from practice to the race, and I think that in the last race some 'little things' were missing that didn't fit," justified the MP driver.
"Fourth place was the minimum we could have achieved. We scored points and kept the lead. Now we have to keep focused in search of improvement. The evolution of the others is clear and we have to work hard to keep up with them", concluded Drugovich.
Another Brazilian involved in the dispute, Enzo Fittipaldi, on the other hand, didn't have the weekend of his dreams in Paul Ricard. In the sprint race, he saw his race go up in smoke in a dispute with Roberto Merhi, when he tried to overtake the Spaniard on the outside and got the worst of it - he touched his opponent's car and spun on the track, still being hit hard by Amaury Cordeel right after that.
Judged guilty for the accident, Enzo had to pay five penalties on the starting grid for Sunday's race, starting from 19th place. He managed to get a point and stay in the top-10 - which leaves a positive taste in his mouth for the season's sequence.
"I'm happy with the pace we had, we showed we have the potential to fight for the top positions and we overcame a difficult day with a good race, we got the strategy right and made several overtaking passes", said the Brazilian from Charouz. "I believe we could have gone further this weekend, maybe even fought among the top five, but the problem in qualifying conditioned the rest of the stage here in Paul Ricard. We still managed to get this important point here, and now we're going to think about the Hungarian round, a track I really like, but very difficult to overtake", completed Fittipaldi.
11th, Tomaselli says she would have liked to leave the French round of the W Series in the points zone
Another Brazilian involved in a dispute at the Paul Ricard circuit over the weekend, Bruna Tomaselli took part in the fourth round of the 2022 W Series season - once again won by Jamie Chadwick.
The Racing X driver started 13th and completed the race in 11th place, still outside the points zone. "We didn't manage to qualify well again in the qualifying session. In the race, the start had a crash with (Abbie) Eaton and I had to swerve off the track to avoid hitting her car. So I couldn't gain any more positions like the girls in front of me did. Then I was in 11th position and didn't have enough performance to overtake (Jessica) Hawkins," Tomaselli explained.
"Of course I would like to leave France with more points. I came close to that once again. I know it's not enough and we need to get back to scoring to get back into the top-10 of the championship. Now we have to focus on the second half of the competition and recover in Hungary", projected the Brazilian, who occupies the 12th position in the general classification, with 10 points.