The 2011 Formula 2 season review

When the lights went out for the start of the first race of the 2011 Formula 2 season at Silverstone, they did so with Mirko Bortolotti on pole. Twenty one laps later when the chequered flag flew, Bortolotti had the honour of crossing the line first. At Barcelona, setting for the year's final race, the sequence was repeated; a fitting frame for what was an outstanding season for the Italian.

Over 16 races he amassed seven victories, seven pole positions and 14 podiums. He never finished lower than sixth, sealed the title on home soil at Monza - the penultimate round of the championship - and ended with a winning margin of more than 100 points: fairytale stuff.

Amid such domination it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Bortolotti did not always have things his own way. Miki Monras was more than equal to the Italian's challenge in the second race of the year at Silverstone, and then finished ahead of him in the opening contest at Magny-Cours to assume the championship lead. One race later and this time it was Christopher Zanella leading Bortolotti, with Monras just two points further back.

That Bortolotti eventually finished with such a dominant margin over both speaks volumes for his campaign thenceforth. Where others fell away, or struggled with bad weekends, Bortolotti was simply faultless and unrelenting. Victory in the final race at Spa-Francorchamps gave him the points lead and also the momentum to dominate. He won both races at the Nurburgring, the next round, finished fifth in the first race at Brands Hatch and then took seven consecutive top-two finishes, confirmation he was on another level to the rest of the field.

At the midway stage only Zanella still held a realistic chance of beating Bortolotti, but he too fell away, unable to live with such consistency or indeed to replicate his early season form in the later rounds. After winning twice at Magny-Cours he would ascend the podium in the next four races, but the run then stopped abruptly and a solitary fourth was his best finish in the last eight races.

Monras too dropped away, struggling through a barren run that included three consecutive non-finishes and left him vulnerable to attack. That left the door open for Ramon Pineiro to play a starring role in the second half of the year, the young Spaniard winning three times in his debut year in the championship and coming close to snatching second from Zanella at the close.

Three other drivers won races - Will Bratt at Spa, before budget concerns curtailed his season, Jack Clarke on home soil at Brands and Mihai Marinescu at Monza. Alex Brundle and Tobias Hegewald were able to take pole, at Magny Cours and Brands respectively. Such moments proved fleeting, however, in comparison with Bortolotti's prolonged domination. In truth, 2011 was all about one man...

The FIA Formula 2 Championship in focus

1. Mirko Bortolotti
Points: 316
Wins: 7
Other podiums: 7
Poles: 7
Fastest laps: 7

The statistics tell their own tale of Bortolotti's season. Seven wins, seven pole positions - even after two were taken away by post-race penalties - and 14 podiums are testament to his unstinting pace and appetite. Remarkably the Austro-Italian finished every race inside the points, the first time any driver has achieved the feat in the new era of F2.

It is easy to forget that, having already been a member of the Red Bull and Ferrari Young Driver programmes, Bortolotti is still just 21. Rather than detract from his performances, the pressure of returning to F2 as a pre-season favourite only spurred him on to new heights and he won at all the F1 tracks - Silverstone, Spa, the Nurburgring, Monza and Barcelona.

Simply put, the longer it went on the more he seemed a cut above, culminating in a ruthless and fittingly dominant conclusion in the final round, where he took pole, race victory and set the fastest lap in both contests. A fairytale season also included winning the title on home soil, and no one could argue the right man won the crown.

Having wrapped up the title before the year was out, Bortolotti's toughest test perhaps comes now - the eternal dilemma of where to go next...

2. Christopher Zanella
Points: 193
Wins: 2
Other podiums: 5
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 1

Zanella's early form came somewhat as a surprise, the 22-year-old having struggled in previous seasons in various Formula 3 championships. It didn't take him long to settle into F2 however: after a podium in the second race at Silverstone, he took a magnificent double win in the wet at Magny-Cours to move into the championship lead.

Four straight podiums followed at Spa and the Nurburgring, leaving Zanella and Bortolotti effectively in their own mini league in the fight for the 2011 title. That he couldn't sustain such form is perhaps no surprise, but he fell away markedly: in the last eight races he scored one fourth and one fifth, otherwise failed to break the top five and a 22-point deficit to Bortolotti grew to a gap of more than 100 points.

Zanella also finished with the sixth-highest average qualifying, suggesting that his consistency, rather than his outright pace, was responsible for finishing so high in the championship standings. Indeed, his record of 15 points finishes from 16 races bettered that of past champions Andy Soucek and Dean Stoneman. Other drivers were perhaps faster over a single lap, but only Bortolotti was able to better Zanella's ability to bring it home in the points.

3. Ramon Pineiro
Points: 185
Wins: 3
Other podiums: 4
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 2

Pineiro's season was a tale of two halves: in the first he was fast but struggled to score points, while in the second he was rampant, outscoring all but Bortolotti in the final eight races.

Zanella may have scored more points overall, but Pineiro's advantage in raw pace was more convincing over the season, and his average qualifying was second only by Bortolotti. The results say he progressed markedly at Brands, but he had already qualified on pole at Spa and started on the second row at Magny-Cours. Converting his grid position into a race result was the issue, with Pineiro going backwards in six of the first seven races.

Once that trait was rectified the Spaniard moved onto a whole new plain. Second on the grid was converted into a maiden F2 win at Brands, the first of three straight wins, two during a dominant weekend at the Red Bull Ring that moved him into third overall. While Zanella struggled in the final eight races Pineiro was off the podium only once, when he finished fourth at Monza. As it was he missed out on second by just four points when dropped scores are accounted for, but it was a fine showing for a 20-year-old with precious little experience at this level.

4. Miki Monras
Points: 153
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 3
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 2

A podium finisher in GP3 in 2010, much was made of Monras' switch to Formula 2 and he confirmed his status as an early favourite with a strong display in the opening round at Silverstone, taking victory in only his second race after qualifying on the front row for both contests.

He then finished ahead of eventual champion Bortolotti in the next race at Magny-Cours, moving in to the championship lead after the first three races. It was to prove as good as it got for Monras however. A failure to score a podium in the next 10 races meant he slipped back in the title hunt, and only a late rally at Monza and Barcelona assured him of fourth overall. Most costly was a barren run of three straight races without scoring - starting when he clashed with Mikkel Mac at the Red Bull Ring and retired while running sixth. Eleventh was all he could manage in the second contest, while his worst race of the year came in Monza's first race, in which he dropped from 12th on the grid to 17th.

Such form left his championship position vulnerable until his late push. Had Bratt contested a full season Monras would surely have come under even further scrutiny, but he did just enough to earn fourth.

5. Mihai Marinescu
Points: 138
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 3
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 2

A breakthrough victory at Monza was the highlight of Marinescu's campaign, as the Romanian kept himself in the hunt for third in the championship until the final round of the season.

He had shown flashes of pace in 2010, but often struggled with consistency in qualifying. That trait was also evident this season: Marinescu failed to crack the top 10 on five occasions, but on the other 11 only qualified outside the top five twice. That gave him the platform to record 10 top-five finishes, and put together a run that included four podiums in the final six races.

Even then Marinescu was prone to occasional lapses. After winning from pole in the opening contest at Monza, he started the second race from 18th and retired after making up just one place on the opening five laps. It was a similar story at the Nurburgring - he qualified in second for race one but was only 13th for race two, and he left Germany without a point. Five non-points finishes were more than either Tobias Hegewald or Jack Clarke, both of whom finished behind him in the championship, scored. Of his 11 points finishes however only one was outside the top five - an eighth place at Spa - and that was enough to put him a relatively comfortable fifth overall.

6. Tobais Hegewald
Points: 121
Wins: 0
Podiums: 2
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 1

Two wins from his maiden F2 season in 2009 made Hegewald something of a wildcard coming in to the season, but the German wasn't able to match the feat and instead ran inside the top two for just nine and a half laps all year.

That statistic owes more to Hegewald's struggles in the races than it does to his qualifying form. In the last 10 races he made ground from his qualifying spot only once, when he fought back from 21st on the grid to 15th at the flag. In contrast, he went backwards on six occasions, including slipping from pole to third at Brands - courtesy of a hesitant start that allowed Jack Clarke and Ramon Pineiro to get by.

Despite such struggles, Hegewald was able to score points in 12 of the 16 races, and remained in mathematical contention for third overall until the final round of the season. He also picked up one second place, passing Alex Brundle in the wet at Magny-Cours to score his best result of the season. Had points been awarded for qualifying, however, he would have ended the year 26 points to the good and one place higher in the standings. The pace was there, he just needed it to replicate it more in the races.

7. Alex Brundle
Points: 112
Wins: 0
Podiums: 3
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 0

Brundle ended the year in seventh, but in truth he could and perhaps should have been higher as he scored four DNFs and two finishes outside the top 15, the worst return of any driver in the top eight. Brundle's problems were not all of his own doing - a clutch issue and a puncture accounting for his two pointless finishes at Silverstone for example - but they crippled his bid for a championship top five.

That was not an unrealistic prospect given qualifying form alone. The Briton had the fifth best average of the entire grid, ahead of second-place Christopher Zanella, and would have finished fourth, with 52 points more, if points were awarded for qualifying rather than race performance. One pole was matched by three further front row starts, and only once did he qualify outside the top 10 - an 11th place at Spa.

As it was his one lap pace did not always equate with race performance. Fourth and sixth at Brands became a DNF and 17th in the two races, and a clash with Will Bratt led to a retirement while running fourth at the Nurburgring. Strong results did come, notably at Magny-Cours where he finished on the podium in both races. That highlighted the fact the pace was there, and that he only needed to convert it more frequently into race results to finish higher in the standings.

8. Jack Clarke
Points: 112
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 2
Poles: 0
Fastest laps: 1

More might have been expected from the start of the season for Clarke, after 2010 podiums at Brands and Valencia showed that, on his day, he had the pace to challenge for victory. When he got it right, he was able to challenge again this season, and on the two occasions he broke into the top five in qualifying he finished on the podium, even scoring a breakthrough victory from third at Brands.

Too often however Clarke struggled in qualifying and therefore started on the back foot. Whereas he scored seven top-five finishes in practice sessions, come qualifying the figure drops to two - a trend that hurt his chances of scoring more. That was true in Silverstone, where he set the pace in first practice but finished eighth and sixth in the two races, while his struggles in the wet at Magny-Cours and Spa meant he took one solitary point in the next three races.

His season was salvaged at the Red Bull Ring, where a podium marked the start of three rostrums in the next four races. His qualifying form dropped after that and, by extension, so too did his race finishes, as he troubled the top-five just once in the final six races. Consistency was not the problem - his record of 13 points finishes was bettered only by the championship's top two - but his qualifying form derailed his campaign.

9. Will Bratt
Points: 92
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 3
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 0

More had been expected from the 2009 Euroseries 3000 champion when he first joined F2 last season, but there were signs he was a genuine championship threat this year until budget issues curtailed his campaign after the eighth race of the year after the Nurburgring.

An early disqualification at Silverstone - he failed to see a drive-through penalty for not respecting track limits and had his second-place finish taken away - left him playing catch-up, but Bratt finished every race thereafter in the points, a feat only bettered at the time by Bortolotti and Zanella.

The Briton also boasted the third-best average qualifying position, behind only Bortolotti and Pineiro, and after eight events was fourth in the championship, two points behind Miki Monras, despite his early disqualification. He had also won once, moving through from fifth to first in the opening contest at Spa, and taken three further podiums.

Budget trouble, meaning he feared most weekends could be his last, can't have helped and his financial struggles finally ended his title bid at the half-way mark. Despite that, Bratt did enough to end the year ninth in the championship, comfortably clear of Kelvin Snoeks in 10th. It would have been interesting to see what he could have achieved had he completed the full season.

10. Kelvin Snoeks
Points: 40
Wins: 0
Other podiums: 0
Poles: 0
Fastest laps: 0

A long way back from Will Bratt in ninth, Snoeks didn't trouble the top order too often during the season, with one solitary top-five finish at the Red Bull Ring his best result. He also scored fewer points than in his maiden season last year - which also included a podium at Marrakech - despite finishing three places higher in the championship. As far away as he was from ninth, however, he also collected nearly double the points of Mikkel Mac in 11th and scored points in nine of the 16 races, an improved record compared to his 2010 campaign.

Had Snoeks' qualifying matched his race form, he could have found himself higher still. It wasn't until race five and Spa that he scored his first top-10 in qualifying and it would be another seven races before he repeated the feat at the Red Bull Ring. While a hindrance, it didn't stop Snoeks scoring in the races: after a DNF to open his account, he scored points in five of the next six races, making up a total of 27 places in the process.

He found form in the closing stages, taking points in four of the last five races and a season's best qualifying result of fifth, but more had been expected in his second season.

For full results and all the statistics from this season's F2 action, visit Forix