The second race of Season 2022 took place in the traditional circuit of Barcelona!
Hewitt crashed during the qualifiers and Biskup won the pole position in her stead. Mendoza stole the second place from Geckinho by mere hundredths of a second. Kisielewicz fumbled his flying lap and was bound to set the back of the grid on fire.
Biskup dominated the entire race up to the final lap, building a gap of over 15 seconds to his runner-up. Sadly, a tire failure just a few corners before the finish line saw him leave Barcelona empty-handed.
The fight for the second position was much more heated; Mendoza held into it as much as she could while Geckinho and Bedoya engaged in the fight for the third position, but before the end of the first lap, the place had switched already from the Brazilian driver and then to the Mexican.
Mendoza struggled to contain Geckinho and keep the third position, but he finally was able to break her defense by the middle of lap 3 to finally strike at Bedoya and recover the second position before its end. Just as she was getting to lap 4, Denzi had already struck taking her down to the 5th. She was able to recover this position, however, as Denzi has a close call near the Repsol corner.
At this height of the race (Lap 5/6), Hewitt had finally managed to cross through the back of the grid and join the game for the second position; she quickly managed Denzi jumping into the fifth position and advancing menacing towards Mendoza, and Kisielewicz was not far as he set his eyes over the purple Hatena of Denzi, who gave a good fight before finally yielding.
As Kisielewicz climbed, Hewitt was doing her job as well, dispatching Mendoza and sending her his way. The pressure sure built up over the Argentinian driver, who oversteered near La Caixa corner and was sent back to the 6th position.
Geckinho’s Hatena lost traction near the RACC corner, after retaining the second spot for a big chunk of the race, Bedoya and Hewitt didn’t miss the chance and ran past him entering the final lap of the race. Hewitt surpassed Bedoya at almost the same time as her teammate’s unfortunate accident, however as she was heading to her second win of the season, her wheels locked briefly over the Sabadell corner as she dodged Biskup’s crash site. Geckinho, Bedoya, and Kisielewicz surpassed her quickly to finish the race in that order.
There was a lot of action in the back of the race, as Gaburi did a decent job containing the furious Kisielewicz. She had an accidented race however and ended up crashing near the SEAT corner, in Lap 4.
Simernino had a race to forget, being unable to defend his starting 5th position as Hewitt and Kisielewicz cruised thru, and then losing control of his car to drop to the 9th position, only to be entangled with Wichman’s slower SLARA during the rest of the race. Only Biskup’s and Gaburi’s abandonment could put him in a 7th position, a whooping 12 seconds after Geckinho.
Results
Geckinho’s victory served him tremendously, making him jump four positions to the second spot in the drivers’ championship. Hewitt managed to remain at the top while Simernino dropped three rows.
Mendoza’s single point, on the other hand, puts her above three drivers who haven’t managed to score so far, including the veteran Denzi.
Biskup lost one position because of his unlucky last lap. Were it not for this failure, he would likely have topped his teammate Hewitt!
As for the team’s championship, we have a new leader as Epona raises thru the ranks with Bedoya and Kisielewicz scoring strong! so far it seems the decision to not renew with Wichman has paid off tremendously. Geckinho’s victory also means Majeyaux is now under Queenscape and Hatena. But the season is merely beginning, we’ll see what happens in Monaco, next weekend!
FormulaProc 