Career Best FIA Formula 2 Qualifying Result For John Bennett At Spa

John Bennett achieved the best qualifying result of his FIA Formula 2 Championship career to date in the most recent event at Spa-Francorchamps (17-19 July), by recording the fifth fastest time among the grid of 22 cars during the qualifying session on Friday.

The Salisbury-based racer has enjoyed a positive run of pace and performance in recent events, including taking his maiden FIA F2 victory with a sensational performance in Austria and fighting for points at his home event at Silverstone. 

The eighth round of the season took him to Belgium and the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit located in the Ardennes, in support of the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix. The Trident driver immediately established himself as a contender with strong pace throughout Friday.

A top-seven showing in free practice was then backed up in the crucial qualifying session, in which Bennett scored his best result so far by putting his car into the top five with a time of 1m56.759s to head into the weekend's two races with confidence.

First up on Saturday was the shorter sprint race, with Bennett - who is supported by Pangea Insurance - lining up in sixth place on the reverse grid. He kept in touch with the leading pack throughout the early stages of the contest, but unfortunately saw his race come to an early end when his car suffered a high-speed spin exiting Blanchimont.

Sunday gave the former GB3 vice-champion a chance for redemption, and he started the feature race in great fashion on the Medium compound Pirelli tyres. The Trident man settled into sixth position immediately, but soon found his groove by setting the quickest lap of the race on lap five, and then disposing of championship leader Nikola Tsolov at the final chicane.

He continued his charge by passing Alex Dunne and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak with ease, moving up into third position with pace in his pocket. His race strategy was then given a cruel blow, though, as the red flags were waved to halt the race on lap nine with Bennett among many not having taken their mandatory pit stop. He restarted still pushing in third position, pitting under a safety car to put the softer tyres on his car in P12.

He went on the attack, brilliantly passing Ritoma Miyata on the outside line through the Bus Stop chicane, moving to within one place of the points. The additional grip expected of the tyre would not last long enough to allow him to make up the ground he wanted however, leaving the soft runners powerless to defend their places. Bennett ended up an unlucky, and unrepresentative P16 on a weekend where his pace deserved so much more. 

John Bennett: "We were super unlucky this weekend. The pace has been there all the time and we showed that all the way through Friday. We found a sweet spot with the Trident guys and we managed to take P5 in qualifying which was our best result of the season and that gave us confidence heading into the weekend. Qualifying was definitely something we'd been trying our improve this season, and I think we're making inroads now which is positive.

"The weekend could have had a double points finish with our performance on track, but we suffered the spin in race one which was a big moment, and then got massively unlucky with the red flag and then the safety car in the second race where we were hoping to go long and avoid the tyre degradation of the super soft tyre. Lots of positive still to take into the next rounds."

Bennett is immediately back in action as the Formula 2 Championship supports the Hungarian Grand prix with two races at the Hungaroring in Budapest over the weekend of 24-26 July.