Promise, but no payoff for Hitech in Spielberg

Sprint Race

Both Hitech drivers showed promising pace in the opening stages of the Sprint Race, but the result was ultimately dictated by electrical issues on both cars.

Colton Herta’s race ended early after the problem forced his retirement, despite a strong start and early progress through the opening laps. Ritomo Miyata was also affected by an electrical issue that left him without DRS for much of the race, significantly limiting his ability to fight in the midfield.

Ritomo continued to the flag and finished P17 in difficult and compromised conditions.

Although both drivers were impacted, they had shown encouraging pace before the problems emerged, giving the team positives to carry into Sunday’s Feature Race.

Feature Race

The Feature Race provided an opportunity to reset, with Ritomo Miyata starting P17 on the supersoft compound and Colton Herta lining up P20 on the soft tyre.

A scrappy opening lap across the field immediately created movement, with Colton capitalising well to rise to P15 before the first Safety Car neutralised the race. Ritomo remained in the midfield but slipped to P18 as the order compressed in the early stages.

At the restart on Lap 4, the race quickly became strategy-driven, with tyre degradation and pit timing beginning to define track position. Colton briefly lost ground but remained firmly in the upper midfield as the field split on differing strategies.

By Lap 7, Colton had cycled up to P13 as pit stops reshuffled the order, while Ritomo moved to P16 during the first phase of stops before making his own pit stop on Lap 10 from P11. Switching to the soft tyre, he rejoined in P20 and had little opportunity to make progress until the longer-running cars made their stops.

Colton continued on a longer first stint strategy, running as high as P5 as others stopped ahead of him. He later came under pressure from Varone before a close call on Lap 26, when Boya suffered a technical issue at the crest of the hill, forcing Colton into a rapid avoidance manoeuvre to prevent contact.

On Lap 30, Colton made his stop for the supersoft compound and rejoined in P19, finishing P18 in the final classification.

Ritomo finished P15, having gained two places on his starting position.

Attention now turns to Silverstone for the second half of the back-to-back, where the season reaches its midpoint and the team will look to reset and convert that pace into results.

Jan Sumann, Hitech’s F2 Head of Race Engineering:

“It’s been a difficult weekend in Spielberg, particularly given the potential we showed in both races before things unfolded against us.

“In the Sprint, the electrical issues had a clear impact on both cars, and that compromised what could have been a much stronger result. In the Feature Race, there were encouraging phases again but we weren’t able to convert that into points.