Surtees: The Official Website

The first two rounds of the reintroduced FIA Formula 2 Championship took place at Valencia. Car number 7 carrying the Surtees Formula 2 colours from its Championship winning year of 1972 was driven by Henry Surtees.

It had been a steep learning curve for Henry, having come from Formula Renault, in the 2½ days of running that had been possible with the new car. Henry had topped the testing times at Silverstone which was encouraging and a sign that he was coming together with hand clutch, paddle shifts and 400bhp. What wasn’t there was the experience of using the boost override to give an extra 50bhp for 6 second bursts on 8 occasions or the hand clutch and starts.

Practice looked good with Henry immediately on the pace. Qualifying could have been better. Henry ended up 10th which was not bad considering the quality of the field that was in front of him, but on speed he would have been better having caught yellow flags at all the wrong times. The second qualifying showed a little lack of experience in that again a yellow flag held his new tyre run up and he pitted too early.

The two races brought 7th and 12th positions with 2 points in the Championship, but again not a true reflection on speed. Henry just didn’t get the two starts right and dropped back 3 or 4 places. It was then a very difficult task on the Valencia circuit to get past anyone, particularly if you had an experienced driver who backed you up going into the slower corners and powered out. This is what he encountered in both races.

We must look forward to circuits which allow drivers to create more opportunities. The car will also no doubt benefit from its ongoing development programme and particularly the need to introduce tyres that allow the chassis capabilities to be fully explored.
John Surtees
2 June 2009