Swiss Boschung made it into the points twice this weekend by finishing 8th and 10th. Indian Maini moved through the field on Sunday to take the checkered flag in 8th position
Campos Racing were back into the points-paying positions with their two drivers Ralph Boschung and Kush Maini delivering strong performances at a rain-marred weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, which hosted the tenth round of the 2023 FIA Formula 2 Championship season. Despite changeable weather made things way more difficult, the Spanish-based racing team and their drivers completed two remarkable races ahead of the summer break.
On Friday, all the drivers were forced to deal with a slippery surface in the morning’s free practice session. At the end, Boschung posted a lap of 2m17.985s and finished ninth in the standings. His teammate Maini clocked a lap time of 2m18.163s to round out the top-ten, a promising start to the weekend. Later in qualifying, the session was a perfect example of how difficult the event was to be. With dark clouds coming, some drivers chose to mount slick tires, Boschung himself, and others such as Maini was out on wets. But the heavy rain arrived a lap too late for such a gamble. As a result, Boschung clocked a lap of 2m09.541s and set to start from seventh. Maini posted a lap of 2m14.649s and would line up 19th on the grid. Nobody else improved a single lap in the rest of the session.
Saturday’s sprint race, which consisted of 17 laps, saw Boschung starting from 4th on the reverse grid. When the lights went out, Boschung remained in the top-five with Maini gaining some places and moving up to 14th after the first lap. The safety car was deployed when Amaury Cordeel stopped on track in lap 2 but the race went to green flag two laps later. The field was nip and tuck for most of the race with DRS playing a key role on Kemmel straight. Despite losing some ground at the end, Boschung took the checkered flag in 8th place. Maini finished in 18th place as he pitted to change his red soft tire by the middle of the race.
On Sunday, Boschung got a pretty good getaway and moved up to fifth. Unfortunately, the Swiss racer dropped back due to an issue heading into Eau Rouge but managed to solve it and continued the fray. The safety car was deployed after lap one as Dennis Hauger and Ayumu Iwasa made contact at Les Combes. Two laps later, the feature race got back in green flag conditions. With a clear dry line, overtaking was quite tricky yet but Maini and Boschung started to move through the field. Maini made a pass on Roy Nissany seconds earlier than a Virtual Safety Car deployed when Isack Hadjar crashed into the wall exiting the pit lane due to low grip conditions. Boschung was the first driver of Campos Racing to make his mandatory pit stop in lap 11 with Maini heading into the pit lane four laps later. The safety car was brought out again when Jak Crawford spun out after contact and with four laps to go the race was restarted. By then, both Maini and Boschung were eying a points-paying result. They moved past Juan Manuel Correa and Clément Novalak and the Indian driver crossed the finish line in 8th place. Boschung rounded out the top-ten.
Maini sits 11th in the drivers’ standings on 56 points with Boschung in P16. Campos Racing moves up to 8th in the standings.
The FIA Formula 2 Championship now takes its traditional summer break before heading to the Netherlands on 26-27 August, with Round 11 taking place at Zandvoort.
