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F2 car issues "unacceptable", "unbelievable" - Aitken
Jack Aitken has labelled the reliability issues in Formula 2 as ‘unacceptable’, ‘unsafe’ and ‘unbelievable’, as the Renault Formula 1 junior fell further back in the title race in Monaco.
Jack Benyon
Edited: May 27, 2018, 12:58 PM
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There were two stalls in the Monaco sprint, and Luca Ghiotto crashed into the back of Tadasuke Makino’s stalled car off the grid.
Championship leader Lando Norris has previously spoken about the potential dangers of cars being stationary on the grid, and other cars hitting them at speed.
“There were stallers on the grid again and there was a crash, I think it’s clear the situation is not correct,” Aitken explained to Motorsport.com.
“I’m doubtful it will be entirely fixed this year, it’s difficult to do that mid-season.
“It doesn’t change the fact that the championship is being decided in this way.”
Although Aitken didn't actually stall in Monaco, he suffered three stalls in the first four races which has hurt his title campaign with his ART Grand Prix team.
He is now 51 points behind Norris in the standings, after a throttle pedal sensor broke in the sprint race in Monaco on Sunday when he was due to start second on the grid.
Almost every driver on the F2 grid has stalled this season, although an ECU update for the last round in Barcelona seemed to help improve the problem, but starting was still difficult.
Ghiotto agreed with Aitken that more work on the system is needed.
“I agree with that, it’s not a good thing, they should do something more after what they did in Barcelona,” said the Italian. “It looked [fixed] in Barcelona, but today there were two [stalls]."
He added that Monaco multiplied the issue because the track is so narrow.
“We have more space at other tracks,” the Campos Racing driver said.
“Here in Monaco, it is narrow. If the car stalling is not the one in front of you, it’s tough to see.”
Nyck de Vries, one of the stallers in the Monaco sprint race, was less outspoken. That was his first stall of the season and he put it down to starting near the back of the grid, which he is not used to, and how little time drivers have to prepare there.
“I don’t want to criticise anyone on their job, I’m sure they are trying hard to solve it, no one wants to see cars stalling on the grid. It’s true that it’s extremely difficult.”
Formula 2 issued Motorsport.com with a statement: “We are perfectly aware of the situation and we have already put in place improvements on the car with further upgrades scheduled.
“F2 has always been and is a challenging championship with limited electronic assistance in order to showcase the skills of the drivers.”
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