Charles Leclerc is the first FIA Formula 2 Drivers’ Champion after claiming victory in Saturday afternoon’s feature race at the Circuito de Jerez, leading all race long apart from the pitstop crossover and hanging on despite slowing enormously on the last lap as his tyres gave up to cross the line 0.2s ahead of title rival Oliver Rowland and teammate Antonio Fuoco.
Temperatures soared as the grid formed behind poleman Leclerc, with the Ferrari Academy driver easily containing front row starter Luca Ghiotto into turn 1 ahead of Sergio Sette Camara and Alexander Albon, with Rowland clinically dispatching the pair as he fought for his slender shot at the title: the Briton closed on the Italian but was unable find a way by as Leclerc built a huge lead over the pair ahead of their pitstops.
As expected most of the field started on the soft compound tyres, with pitstops coming as early as lap 7: Sette Camara became the target man after stopping on lap 9, with Ghiotto in 2 laps later but unable to contain the Brazilian after a slow stop. Leclerc and Rowland came in next time by, with the Monegasque out in P5 and Rowland emerging 2 places back before also being passed by Sette Camara and Albon.
As Leclerc started to pass the medium shod drivers and headed back to the front, Rowland had to following suit, dispatching the pair on lap 15: the Monegasque driver finally reclaimed the lead from Nicholas Latifi, who waved him through on lap 19, with Rowland grabbing second 2 laps after fighting his way through the traffic, and Ghiotto finally re-joining the top 3 after battling his way past Fuoco, who was one of the last drivers to pit for fresh rubber.
Latifi and Fuoco were soon putting their new tyres to work, fighting their way up the grid against rivals on older rubber, but it looked to be an effort in vain until Santino Ferrucci and Nobuharu Matsushita came together at turn 1 with the American coming off second best, stopping in the barriers and prompting a safety car period to remove his car, closing the field in the process and turning the tyre strategy on its head.
Leclerc had a lapped Sean Gelael on fresh tyres between himself and Rowland as they toured around, and when the race went live on lap 35 the Monegasque driver eased away at the front of the field with the Briton slicing by the Indonesian to chase his rival for the closing laps. Fuoco was soon charging towards them, easily passing Sette Camara, Latifi and Ghiotto to put himself on the podium.
On the final lap Leclerc tyres were spent: he slowed dramatically, bunching up his pursuers who also had to content with a battle between Gelael and Louis Deletraz as they looked in vain for a line past Leclerc, who had just enough left to lead the group over the line as he claimed his 6th victory of the season, and with it the 2017 title.
Rowland just held out Fuoco for P2, with Latifi breathing down their necks in 4th, while Markelov was a fine P5 after a first lap tangle ahead of Jordan King, who made the alternate strategy work for him after mugging Ghiotto on spent tyres late in the race. Alex Palou was a splendid 8th on his debut, picking up the reverse pole for tomorrow’s sprint race, ahead of a strong drive by Nabil Jeffri for P9 and a distraught Sette Camara who also ran out of rubber in 10th.
Charles Leclerc – FIA Formula 2 Champion. How does that sound?
It feels amazing! We’ve had a great season overall, and on the performance side we have always been very, very quick, and the only low on the performance side was the qualy in Monza and that was my fault because I wasn’t good enough in that session. But apart from that I think we have always been on top and this feels really great. Obviously I’ve had some lows during the season, a few on the racing side but most of all on the personal side obviously, after losing my father. Winning the championship is an amazing way for me to honour him, and actually I would like to dedicate this title for him. I would prefer to not dedicate any other titles in the future. Last year I dedicated to Jules [Bianchi], this year to my father, so hopefully next year I don’t, well, next year maybe it might be a bit more difficult [to win a title], but hopefully I don’t need to dedicate any other titles.
How important has your relationship with the Prema team been?
Obviously it’s very important to be in the right team. It’s always something that makes you win the championship – I think we’ve had a really good year, we have worked very hard from winter testing and we focused on ourselves. Winter testing wasn’t how we wanted it to be, we didn’t feel we were quick enough. But coming to the first race I did quite of a step and they did quite of a step as well, which meant that we were very quick from then on. So yeah, it has been an amazing season, there are still three races to go where we need to perform at our best but it has been a pleasure to work with them.
How difficult was the fight with Oliver Rowland and Artem Markelov? You haven’t had anyone very close for the last few races but you’ve always seemed to be battling Oliver – what’s that been like from your point of view?
From my point of view as I always have done in recent years I focussed a lot on myself and on my car and that’s it. To be honest, the competition you always feel it, but I was looking at myself and trying to do the best results all the time. Today is probably the first time I felt that I absolutely had to stay in front of Oliver and yeah, it feels good to win the championship.
How early in the season did you believe this title was possible?
I think in Barcelona after race one. In Bahrain the qualy – it was a bit unsure whether we had been lucky or if we were very quick because there was a red flag at the wrong moment for the others and everything, so it was a bit difficult to judge and then in race one it wasn’t really positive because I struggled in managing the tyres and I knew that in F2 obviously tyre management is a very big part of the championship. In race two we won but we did a very different strategy than the others, so again it was not like we knew we would be on top at the next race. Then arriving to Barcelona it became clear that we had the pace to win the championship and that if we were doing the job correctly we had good chances to win the championship. I had the pole and we won race one in Barcelona without any luck, so yeah it was at that moment that I understood that we had the potential to win the championship.
On the racing side of things, what was the highlight and the lowlight of the season from your point of view?
Well the highlight was I would say Baku on the racing side, also given the circumstances to have had two great results like this has been an amazing achievement from the team and I, and I think after that on the low side, there have been quite a bit of lows this year actually. Probably in terms of disappointment I would say in Monaco, because obviously I was at home and not to finish the race was definitely heart-breaking.
What is this win going to mean to the team and the people behind you?
Well I mean it’s always amazing to win any championship. I think it’s the result of a lot of dedication from all the teams and all the guys that are working here. Obviously the mechanics, the engineers the team managers and everyone around I mean it’s a result of this. I’m very, very happy with them, they couldn’t have done any better job this year – they have given me the best car out there, as I said there have been quite a few lows but to be honest I think that when you want to be the best with the car you need to be on the limit with everything and I completely understood that, so I think they couldn’t do any better and I can’t thank them enough this year.
Finally, what are your plans for next year Charles?
Well actually now I will call my manager because they didn’t want to tell me anything before winning the championship so I will call him just after to know a bit more…
