No luck for Calderon in Monaco race 2

Tatiana Calderon's second race on the historic streets of Monaco came to a premature end after being hit by Luca Ghiotto.

After a troubled first race, Calderon lined up in 14th for Saturdays' sprint race on the streets of Monaco, with a set of new tyres unlike other drivers who used one extra set of their allocated Pirelli option tyres during the red-flagged feature race yesterday.

Teammate Antoine Hubert, who inherited the reverse grid pole after Ghiotto's post race disqualification, had a good start and immediately gained the lead at Saint Devote. Behind him, F2 returnee Artem Markelov was passed by Zhou for 3rd after an hesitant start.

As everybody went by the first corner, it was immediately clear that Mahaveer Raghunathan had cutted on the inside thus receiving a 10 seconds time penalty.

Calderon tried to cautiously avoid contacts on the first lap but got stuck in traffic at Fairmont hairpin and lost 2 places.

Her race, though, came to a premature end soon after, when Luca Ghiotto saw a gap a dived on the inside of Mirabeau Haute, forcing the Colombian driver against the barriers.

The Safety Car was deployed to remove the damaged BWT Arden car, as Tatiana walked back to the pitlane with a sore hand.

Ghiotto, starting from the back after yesterday's penalty and frustrated by the lack of passing opportunities typical of the Monaco track, crashed into Raghunathan a few corners after the restart and retired. He will have to serve a 3 places grid drop for the French round for having caused the collisions.

The field was then quickly splitted in groups, as Hubert, Deletraz, Zhou and Markelov opened a significant gap on the rest of the field. The second part of the race saw the Russian experienced driver putting pressure on Zhou, but the MP Motorsport driver was unable to find a way past the Chinese.

In the latter stages, Sean Gelael hitted Alesi twice, before spinning him at Nouvelle chicane and forcing him to retire. The Prema driver, unsurprisingly, was handed a drive through and rejoined 15th.

With two laps to go, Deletraz launched a couple of attacks on Hubert for the race lead, with the Frenchman having to lock-up at the chicane to defend. The fight saw its brilliant climax in the photo-finish ending, with Hubert taking his maiden win by 0.059s.

Tatiana Calderon leaves the Principality not with the results she had hoped for and with two races compromised by overambitious moves by some of her competitors. The return of FIA F2 on a traditional track like Le Castellet, France, will hopefully bring more luck and to the Colombian, and the much sought after top ten.

In Tatiana's words:

“So many emotions this weekend, although it was very tough one, I will never forget my first time driving around Monaco. Hope to see you next year!”

Ph credits: F2 media