Tatiana continues to make progress on her return to FIA Formula 2, made possible by the support of award-winning artist Karol-G, AVL Racetech and Escudería Telmex, having a promising run on Sunday but with an unfortunate ending in the Netherlands.
In a new challenge for Tatiana, who last competed at Zandvoort in 2015, the weekend marked F2’s debut at the Dutch circuit, which saw a sellout crowd for the Formula 1 Grand Prix and its support events.
The Colombian driver started the weekend with an interrupted practice session on Friday as some drivers struggled with the conditions and the challenges of the 4.2-kilometre track. Once again the limited running made for a tough qualifying for Tatiana, having just got a feel of the hard compound tyres for the first time before switching to the more grippy softs for qualifying.
In Saturday’s 29-lap Sprint Race, Tatiana was forced to start from the pit-lane after stalling on the formation lap. With competitive lap times, she showed encouraging pace, going fifth fastest at the speed trap, the fastest place on the circuit. Tatiana’s race was cut short just four laps from the chequered flag after spinning into the gravel at Turn 2.
A promising move in Sunday’s 40-lap Feature Race saw Tatiana on the alternative strategy, moving up to P10 on Lap 13 as others pitted. However, with drivers unable to pit under Safety Car conditions due to the circuit’s tight pitlane, Tatiana was forced to wait until Lap 21 to box. Unfortunately, and through no fault of her own, Tatiana got hit by Clement Novalak at the pit-lane entry, which broke a rear suspension on her Charouz Racing System car, forcing her to retire at half distance.
Overall, it was a weekend of learning, gaining experience and continuing to get more rhythm as she now looks ahead to the penultimate round of the 2022 F2 championship at Monza.
The Temple of Speed, located 15-km north of Milan, celebrates its 100th year of racing competition in 2022. Tatiana competed there in the FIA World Endurance Championship last year, finishing eighth in the LMP2 class. She also had her best result there in the GP3 (now FIA F3) championship in 2017, finishing the Feature Race in P6 after starting from P15.
Tatiana Calderón: “We continue to make progress every time we’re on the track and the lap times were more and more competitive during the weekend, but it is a shame that we didn’t get the result to show that, especially in the feature race where I was building on the lessons from Saturday’s sprint. I guess our strategy would have given us the chance to show some good pace in the second stint, but sadly we were denied that chance when we got taken out of the race while on my way to the pitlane for our mandatory stop. The good thing is Monza is just a few days away, the slipstream will come into play as usual and it will be totally different to Zandvoort, as it is a unique track, but one that I enjoy. My goal is to take another step there and hopefully get the results to go along with that.”
Tatiana’s third weekend of the triple-header begins with a free practice session on Friday at 10:25 (UTC+2)local time, before qualifying at 18:30. Saturday’s 21-lap Sprint Race begins at 18:00 and the weekend concludes with the 30-lap Feature Race at 10:05 on Sunday.
