Hard-fought home weekend for Hitech F2 at Silverstone
Round 7 - Silverstone - Report
Hitech F2 encountered a challenging home weekend at Silverstone, with Ritomo Miyata and Colton Herta battling through two closely fought races after qualifying P9 and P15 respectively.
Sprint Race
Ritomo’s ninth place in qualifying promoted him to the front row for Saturday’s reverse-grid Sprint Race, while Colton recovered from limited practice running to extract the maximum from qualifying and secure P15.
The Japanese driver made a strong start to the Sprint, initially holding position before slipping back in the opening exchanges. Unable to recover the lost ground, he crossed the line in P11.
After dropping back on the opening lap, Colton quickly recovered to P15 and remained in the midfield fight throughout. Contact with a spinning car in the closing stages cost him a position, leaving the American to finish P16.
Feature Race
Cooler conditions on Sunday morning presented a different challenge from the heat experienced throughout the rest of the weekend, changing the tyre management landscape across the 29-lap Feature Race.
Starting on the soft compound, Ritomo held P9 through the opening lap before making an early switch to the hard tyre on Lap 7. Rejoining in P17, he worked his way back through the order as strategies unfolded, ultimately taking the chequered flag in P14.
Colton recovered from an early drop to P17 to climb back into the midfield battle before his stop came on Lap 8. After pitting for the hard tyre, he rejoined in P19 and steadily regained positions as the race developed, finishing P16.
Jan Sumann, Hitech’s F2 Head of Race Engineering:
“It's been a frustrating weekend in many respects because we showed enough pace to compete, but we weren't able to convert that into the results we were targeting.”
“Ritomo maximised what was available across both races, while Colton continued to fight despite a difficult start to the weekend. There are positives to take away, but equally there are areas we know we need to improve before the next round.”
