Because of their frequent lane changes to block, the ART cars their tire life early, and their pace dropped off a cliff.
Lap twelve.
Arthur Leclerc, sitting in eleventh place, was the younger brother of F1 Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.
He easily passed Martins in the DRS zone.
On lap thirteen, he also passed Theo on the straight.
The two ART cars went from coordinating a defense in the first ten laps to being passed one by one, their rankings plummeting.
They paid the price for targeting him, Martin Brundle, the Sky Sports guest commentator, noted.
If you use all your tire life in the first ten laps to block a single car, you have to deal with eleven other opponents in the remaining thirteen laps using rubber that is already peeling off.
This is F2, not bumper cars in a children’s playground.
Lap thirteen.
Julian had chased his way up to sixth place.
Blocking him in fifth was Dennis Hauger.
Dennis’s tire condition was not optimistic either.
His softs had been running for fourteen laps, the tread was heavily grained, and his lap times had already dropped outside the one minute forty six second range.
But look at Julian’s lap time.
One minute forty three point eight seconds.
On the big screen, this number made all the team engineers fall silent.
Lap fourteen.
After running fourteen laps on soft tires, his pace was still inside one minute forty four seconds.
The Sky Sports real time data comparison chart popped up.
Julian’s lap time curve was an almost perfectly horizontal straight line.
From lap one to lap fourteen, the fluctuation did not exceed zero point six seconds.
Meanwhile, the curves for all other drivers had already started to plummet, with lap times generally dropping by one point five seconds or more.
Martin Brundle was silent for two seconds, then said, This is not tire preservation.
This is some kind of tire magic we do not understand yet.
Lap fifteen.
Turn one.
Julian overtook Dennis.
There was no struggle and no fierce defense.
Dennis saw the red car approaching from the outside in his mirrors.
He tried to defend the inside, but his tires lacked grip.
His exit speed was a full zero point three seconds slower than Julian’s, and he could only watch helplessly as Julian’s taillights pulled further and further away.
Dennis did not struggle.
It was not that he did not want to, it was that he simply could not.
The tires and all other objective conditions were right there.
The gap between him and Julian was no longer the gap that should exist between two teammates.
He finally understood what the data Sander and Paul saw over a month ago meant.
It was not a simulator fluke, and it was not a winter test flash of inspiration.
It was a talent that completely surpassed his understanding.
Inside Julian’s car, there were no extra thoughts.
He did not look back at Dennis.
He did not care that he had just passed his teammate.
He just asked a short question over the radio.
Who is next?
Zane Maloney, P4.
Gap is two point three seconds, Paul’s voice came over the radio, trying hard to suppress his excitement.
You have eight laps left. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Copy.
Lap sixteen.
The DRS zone before Turn four.
Julian passed Zane Maloney in the exact same way, moving up to fourth.
Lap seventeen.
Turn one.
Julian passed Ralph Boschung on the inside in the braking zone, moving up to third.
Lap eighteen.
Turn eleven and Turn twelve continuous corners.
He passed Isack Hadjar, but not on the straight.
He passed him inside the corner.
This was the most brilliant overtake of the entire race.
Completing an overtake in a high speed continuous corner was more than a level higher in difficulty than a straight line pass.
Hadjar’s tires were completely gone.
In the continuous corners, his racing line was off by more than half a car width.
Julian cleanly threaded the needle on the inside.
Second place.
Who is left!
Jake’s voice had completely lost its pitch, and he could only scream in a raspy whisper.
Julian is P2!
He chased from the back to second!
There is only one person left!
Oliver Bearman, you are dead!!
Lap nineteen.
Oliver Bearman’s lead was already less than zero point eight seconds.
He was driving hard, and his defensive lines were tough enough, but his soft tires had reached their absolute limit.
His lap times dropped from one minute forty four seconds to one minute forty seven seconds, and they were still falling.
But Julian’s lap time was.
One minute forty four point six seconds.
Lap twenty.
The start finish straight.
Julian pressed the DRS button, and the rear wing opened.
He closed in on Bearman’s slipstream on the straight, and the distance between them shrank rapidly.
Bearman tried to change lanes to the inside to defend, but Julian simply chose the outside.
He did not need to fight.
Relying on his tire advantage was more than enough to eat up Bearman on the straight.
Turn one braking zone.
Julian completed the overtake from the outside.
Clean, decisive, with absolutely no unnecessary movements.
First!!!
Starting from tenth place, with three laps remaining, he had completed overtakes against all the top ten drivers.
In the stream, Jake’s voice was completely gone.
He grabbed the microphone with one hand and waved the other wildly in the air, his mouth open but making no sound.
The screen was completely covered in comments.
It was no longer scrolling, it was falling like a waterfall.
Insane!!!
The hunt is on!!!
Everyone who targeted him got passed one by one!
One after another!
One after another!!
Dennis: What just happened??
Martins and Theo lost so bad, their tires are dead and they are at the back, hilarious!
Has anyone counted how many he passed??
He passed all of them!!
Lap twenty three.
The final lap.
Julian’s red car crossed the finish line.
The checkered flag waved on the start finish straight, and the timer on the big screen froze.
P1 Julian Vance MP Motorsport Led the entire field.
The entire MP Motorsport garage completely boiled over.
Sander and Paul hugged each other, completely losing their usual Dutch calm and restraint.
The mechanics slapped each other’s helmets.
Someone threw their towel at the ceiling.
Someone shook the monitor stand so hard it made a massive clanging noise.
He did it!
He actually did it!
Paul took off his glasses, his eyes slightly red.
He had been an F2 engineer for nearly twenty years, and he had never seen anyone achieve this level of tire management.
Sander did not speak.
He just pounded the edge of the console with his fist, over and over again.
Every punch silently repeated the words he had said on the first day of the Bahrain winter test.
We bet right.
We bet right.
On social media, at eight thirty in the evening.
Jake’s stream viewer count had already broken fifty thousand.
The comments were so dense you could not see the screen at all, you could only see a continuous ocean of red celebration emojis.
P10 start to P1 finish!!!
This is F2!!!
Not F4!!!
I do not even know how to describe this anymore.
Is this guy cheating??
Julian Vance just made history!!
From today on I am a hardcore Julian fan!
Anyone who curses him I will fight!!
Forget the humblebrag quotes!
He really has the right to say F2 is too simple!!
Julian’s car slowly drove into parc ferme.
He unbuckled his harness and stood up from the cockpit.
The Bahrain sun had turned golden yellow, slanting across the pit lane asphalt, stretching everyone’s shadows long.
He took off his helmet and his fireproof balaclava, revealing a face soaked in sweat.
His messy hair was plastered to his forehead, and there was no expression on his face.
It was not that he was unhappy.
He just had not completely switched out of race mode yet.