Photo: Prema
Prema’s Gabriele Mini finished third his first Formula 2 race at Baku replacing Formula 1-bound Ollie Bearman, but it was one full of challenges.
The Alpine F1 junior lined up third in the reversed-grid sprint race and passed DAMS’ Jak Crawford off-the-line. On lap seven of 21, he took the lead from fellow F2 debutant Trident’s Christian Mansell, which he held until lap 13 when the eventual race winner AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen overtook him.
It has been all a learning process since he got the call-up, therefore, the victory wasn’t ever on his thoughts even though he commanded the field for several laps.
“It’s not something I was thinking about because I knew the race was long,” he told media including Formula Scout after the race. “I remember when I went to overtake Christian, I asked how many laps there were to go. We were not even halfway, and it felt like ages had been and gone. I was not really thinking about it. I was just thinking about trying to manage my tyres as going as fast as possible and keeping these guys behind.
“I just got the call one week prior to this, so we started doing a bit of a simulator,” he explained about the weekend build-up. “Then it’s a lot about learning all the procedures, the start procedure, to switch on the brakes. In every case, you know, safety car, what to do, what not to do. It’s really a boom of information that you have in your head before going on track. And you can have to clear that and just try and drive while also remembering that.
“The first part of the race was a lot about settling in, trying to understand the car set-up because I had never done a race stint. So it was my first racing laps today. It was a lot about understanding what the limit is, how to manage the tyres and whatever we spoke with my engineer, trying to do it on track.
“At the beginning, it went pretty well. We overtook, we stayed P1 for half of the race, then started dropping quite a bit. Especially when Joshua overtook me, we started dropping quite far back. Then I tapped the wall in the last corner. So I had to do half of the race with a steering wheel bent. So I’d say after that it was probably one of the toughest races,” he said.
At the end, the Italian “was just hoping that he [Victor Martins] didn’t overtake me”, as the two drivers took the chequered flag just 0.020 seconds apart.
“It’s really hard to understand in the car because it was a lot of difference in speed. Also, I couldn’t see him anymore because we went in such a part of the track that I couldn’t see where he was anymore in my mirror. So I just went somewhere on track and then he appeared there right before the finish line.”