Rain, rivalry and sheer determination made the latest race weekend a true spectacle. At the famously soggy track, rain threatened to pour throughout the weekend as Ollie secured another pole position in his rookie season.
Qualifying
Braving the Belgian rain, Ollie didn’t hang around, storming to his third pole of the season before the heavens opened and put a halt to qualifying on a damp Friday afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps.
The mid-session downpour meant that Ollie only had one chance to get it right as he and teammate Frederik Vesti took to the track. Qualifying began on a drying track, with heavy rain on the radar, and was promptly red-flagged after Mason spun off at Turn 9.
When qualifying resumed, most drivers opted for Slicks as torrential rain started to pour at Sector 3, leaving those behind the Prema boys with little hope of beating their pace. With Ollie securing P1 by almost half a second over his teammate, all drivers retired to the Pits as the rain intensified - to wait out the 20 remaining minutes of the session.
Sprint Race
For the 17 lap Sprint Race, a reverse grid from Friday’s Qualifying session meant Ollie started in 10th position. After only three laps, Daruvala went from leading the race to retiring as his headrest flew out of his car, combined with a spin and stall from Cordeel which prompted a brief Safety Car.
When racing resumed on Lap 5, Ollie had Leclerc on his tail and was less than a second behind Doohan. By Lap 7, Iwasa was within 0.335s of Ollie. The pair raced wheel-to-wheel before the DAMS of Iwasa passed Ollie for 10th place.
Contact between Leclerc and Ollie on Lap 13 resulted in a gravel trip for the Brit and dropped him down into 13th place which was where he crossed the finish line.
Feature Race
The start of Sunday’s Feature Race was delayed by five minutes as Ollie’s Prema teammate, Frederik Vesti spun on the way to the grid, rendering him unable to start the race after lining up alongside Ollie on the front row.
When the race got underway, the Safety Car was almost immediately deployed after contact between Hauger and Iwasa. Hauger was later shown a rare black flag and disqualified after a marshall attempted to push the stricken MP Motorsport car to the closest opening, only for Hauger to ‘bump start’ his car and rejoin the race.
When racing resumed, Ollie’s battle with Pourchaire intensified. The first round of pit stops came by Lap 11. Ollie was reluctant to stop - questioning his team as to why he couldn’t stay out and try to build a time advantage over Pourchaire. Reluctantly pitting at the same time as Pourchaire, ART pipped the Prema crew to the pit stop post, enabling Pourchaire to take the lead from Ollie coming out of the pits.
Another Safety Car was deployed on Lap 16, handing Doohan the perfect opportunity to pit for Softs, leaving the pit lane behind race leader Pourchaire and ahead of Ollie. When the Safety Car ended, with the pack backed up, Martins came together with Ollie as he made a move for third place - with Ollie receiving a five second time penalty.
With no more pit stops scheduled, the penalty was added to Ollie’s time at the end of the race, pushing him down to seventh place, where he collected eight Championship points.
With the first part of the season officially over for the Summer Break - be sure to join us for Round 12 of the season as we head to Zandvoort, Netherlands from 25-27th August.
