Will Bratt had a solid and consistent weekend in the FIA Formula Two World Championship at his home race of Brands Hatch. TheCheckeredFlag.co.uk spoke to him about his weekend as a whole.
In Race One, starting on the second row of the grid, the opportunity was there for a high placed podium finish. However, on Lap One as the pack was coming through Druids, Bratt made contact with slow starting Sergey Afanasiev and was briefly airborne. Luckly no damage was gained and he was able to rejoin in fifth, cue a great drive to force a mistake from Tom Gladdis, and had the race been longer a podium finish would’ve been possible he only finished 0.2s behind third place Ivan Samarin. “Overall fourth was an OK result” said Will, speaking about the possibility of a non-finish “It was disappointing to have the first lap contact at Druids as I'd made a good start and it looked like we'd made it through into third. Luckily the car was ok though and I was able to fight hard with (Tom) Gladdis and (Ivan) Samarin. I was pleased with the move I did into Surtees to re-take fourth, just a shame we couldn't quite get third!”
Starting in sixth for Race Two, Bratt had another strong race to come in fourth. However, following an investigation into an incident involving Jolyon Palmer and Dean Stoneman, Bratt was promoted to third. “I'm pretty happy with the result. Fourth wasn't a bad finish and my pace was good. Obviously it's nice to have gained extra points following Dean's (Stoneman) penalty but it's not the way you want to do it. I think we did a solid job though and it's been a very good weekend on the whole – that win is still eluding us though!”
And that win will surely come soon if Bratt continues to show the form that saw him dominate the test session held earlier in the week, “We've definitely had good pace at Brands, right from testing last Tuesday we've been on it so I'm disappointed not to have been able to fight for a win” And he thinks he has found the reason for the lack of pace shown in the test “Qualifying is where we need to improve, testing goes well and we can always put in strong race performances but there's still something to find in qualifying. As soon as that's sorted, I'm sure we'll be able to challenge for wins.”
Will Bratt, and the rest of the Formula Two field will be back in action in a fortnights time in Brno for Rounds 13 and 14 of the Championship
