Swiss driver Boschung finished fifth and sixth in the streets of the Azerbaijani capital at the wheel of his Campos Racing-run Dallara F2 2018. Italian Nannini showed excellent pace on his debut with the team
Campos Racing extended its streak of positive results in the FIA Formula 2 Championship securing another remarkable points haul in Baku, which played host to the third round of the series in the frame of the Azerbaijani Grand Prix. Ralph Boschung completed another strong weekend making it into the points-paying positions twice and just a mistake from another driver ruined his chances in the second sprint race. Matteo Nannini, in his first outing with the Spanish-based team, made a promising debut in Baku and his performance particularly made an impression on Saturday’s race 2.
Campos Racing had a positive Friday practice with both Boschung and Nannini performing excellently in their Dallara F2 2018 cars. Swiss Boschung topped the timesheets for most of the session and was the first driver to break the 1:57 barrier. At the end, Boschung finished second fastest with a lap time of 1m55.976s. Italian Nannini, on his debut in the streets of Baku, rapidly got to grips and clocked a lap time of 1m59.747s.
Later in qualifying, Boschung posted a personal best lap of 1m55.697s on his first set of tires but he found extra pace on his second and lowered to a time of 1m54.962s, which secured him seventh on the grid for Sunday’s feature race. Nannini, improving more than three seconds his time from practice session and clocked a personal best lap of 1m56.463s. The Italian set to start from row nine.
Saturday’s first sprint race was marred by a couple of incidents on the first lap, which brought the safety car out. Boschung, who had started from fourth on the reverse grid, slightly struggled on the dirty side of grid and dropped to fifth. After four laps, the safety car came in and racing resumed. It was a long train of nose-to-tail cars but the Swiss driver of Campos Racing kept a close battle with Dan Ticktum or Theo Pourchaire among others. Ticktum and Pourchaire got the DRS on the mammoth main straight and moved past Boschung but the Swiss driver reclaimed P6 after passing Marcus Armstrong on the penultimate lap. Boschung managed to secure four more points for the drivers’ classification. Nannini completed a solid race displaying a good pace and finished 15th after 21 laps.
Unfortunately, the second sprint race brought a less positive result for Boschung, who was forced to retire after the first lap when another driver hit him from the back, which ended his race. Italian Nannini showed his talent and speed in the afternoon once again. He avoided any clash on the incident-marred first lap and soon moved into the top-ten. Fighting with the likes of Pourchaire, Oscar Piastri or Jack Aitken, young ace Nannini finally took the checkered flag in elevenths place. Nannini’s race pace on used tires was pretty remarkable at the end of the race.
On Sunday, Lady Luck hit Nannini badly as the Italian failed to make it off the grid due to last-second technical issues. Boschung avoided a clash at the first left-hander and gained two places. The Swiss driver was already running in fourth place when the safety car came in after three laps. Boschung’s race pace on the soft compound was excellent and when the pit window opened, he took the lead before making his mandatory pit stop on lap 8. Boschung got involved in an interesting battle with Russian Robert Shwartzman, the latter passing him when got within DRS range. Boschung masterfully nursed his tires at the end and brought a fifth place home, his best result ever in a feature race of the FIA F2 championship.
Boschung currently sits tenth in the drivers’ standings on 36 points with Campos Racing lying sixth in the teams’ standings. The Spanish-based team gained two further places in the standings and now sits right in the middle of the classification.
The fourth round of the series will take place at Silverstone on 17-18 July.
Adrián Campos-Suñer Torres (Campos Racing Sporting Director): “We are delighted to continue the clearly ascending the ranks in the FIA Formula 2 and after another promising weekend in Monaco. Ralph delivered a very solid race on Sunday but it was a bitter as Matteo couldn’t even make the start today. Paying attention to his rapid improvement over the weekend, I have no doubts he could have make it into the top-ten.”
