2009 Brands Hatch Formula Two round

The 2009 Brands Hatch Formula Two round was the fourth round of the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship season . It was held on 18 and 19 July 2009 at Brands Hatch at Kent , United Kingdom .

Race 1

The first race was won by Philipp Eng , with Andy Soucek and Henry Surtees also on the podium.

Race 2

The second race was won by Andy Soucek , with Robert Wickens and Mikhail Aleshin also on the podium.

The round was overshadowed by the fatal accident suffered by Henry Surtees in the second race. Surtees was hit on the head by a wheel from the car of Jack Clarke after Clarke spun into the wall exiting Westfield Bend. The wheel broke its tether and bounced back across the track into the following group of cars and collided with Surtees' helmet. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The car continued straight ahead into the barrier on the approach to Sheene Curve, also losing a wheel, and came to rest at the end of the cu...

rather than the following crash with the barriers, [ 3 ] and was announced later that day. [ 4 ]

Qualifying 1

Weather/Track: Cloud 19°/Dry 26°

Qualifying 2

Weather/Track: Sun 18°/Dry 28°

Race 1

Weather/Track: Sun 21°/Dry 33°

Race 2

Weather/Track: Cloud 18°/Damp 27°

Quick Facts

Round details Round 4 of 8 in the 2009 FIA Formula Two Championship.

Round details nan

Round details Location

Round details Course

Round details First race

Round details Date 18 July 2009Laps 28Pole positionDriver Philipp EngTime 1:17.445PodiumFirst Philipp EngSecond Andy SoucekThird Henry SurteesFastest lapDriver Mirko BortolottiTime 1:18.705 (on lap 8)

Round details Date

Round details Laps

Round details Pole position

Round details Driver

Table 1

Pos	No	Name	Time	Grid
1	33	Philipp Eng	1:17.445	1
2	22	Andy Soucek	1:17.458	2
3	2	Sebastian Hohenthal	1:17.462	3
4	7	Henry Surtees	1:17.547	4
5	15	Mikhail Aleshin	1:17.660	5
6	21	Kazim Vasiliauskas	1:17.665	6
7	12	Robert Wickens	1:17.723	7
8	4	Julien Jousse	1:17.749	8
9	14	Mirko Bortolotti	1:17.753	9
10	25	Miloš Pavlović	1:17.816	10

Table 2

Pos	No	Name	Time	Grid
1	22	Andy Soucek	1:16.947	1
2	12	Robert Wickens	1:16.975	2
3	2	Sebastian Hohenthal	1:17.108	3
4	33	Philipp Eng	1:17.207	4
5	14	Mirko Bortolotti	1:17.299	5
6	15	Mikhail Aleshin	1:17.398	6
7	15	Carlos Iaconelli	1:17.423	7
8	7	Henry Surtees	1:17.463	8
9	18	Natacha Gachnang	1:17.476	9
10	8	Tobias Hegewald	1:17.481	10

Table 3

Pos	No	Driver	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid
1	33	Philipp Eng	28	39:01.642	1
2	22	Andy Soucek	28	+0.494	2
3	7	Henry Surtees	28	+1.694	4
4	12	Robert Wickens	28	+3.000	7
5	21	Kazim Vasiliauskas	28	+3.271	6
6	17	Carlos Iaconelli	28	+7.398	11
7	25	Miloš Pavlović	28	+7.942	10
8	16	Edoardo Piscopo	28	+8.416	12
9	10	Nicola de Marco	28	+8.953	14
10	15	Mikhail Aleshin	28	+12.100	5

Featured Image

infobox image from 2009_Brands_Hatch_Formula_Two_round

F1ABY Commentary

Didn’t you just *feel* the tension hanging thicker than the Kent drizzle? Eng’s victory felt almost… manufactured, didn’t it? A perfectly executed drive, certainly, but the whispers about Steiner’s team subtly adjusting telemetry readings before the race suggest a calculated advantage. Then, of course, the inevitable. Surtees. Clarke’s spin wasn’t an accident; it was a desperate gamble, a consequence of pushing the limits – and perhaps, a symptom of a wider impatience within the young driver ranks. The paddock’s immediate reaction? A stunned silence, quickly followed by the inevitable scramble to assess blame, and, more importantly, to control the narrative. Wickens, ever the professional, simply moved on, but the shadow of Westfield Bend will linger, won’t it?

Let’s be brutally clear: the Surtees tragedy wasn't just a crash; it was a tectonic shift in the sport’s liability landscape, a moment the governing bodies have been quietly calculating ever since. The ripple effect from that rebounding wheel – a testament to engineering negligence, frankly – will haunt the next generation of young drivers, and I suspect, the FIA’s budget meetings for years to come.

F1ABY Trivia

The air hung thick with a grief heavier than the Kent drizzle. Eng’s victory in Race One felt…distant. You wouldn’t have guessed, looking at those 280 horsepower Tatuomas Savola’s car, that the potential for catastrophic failure – a snapped tether, a spinning wheel – was so acutely present. Savola’s team, I hear, were running a bespoke carbon fiber weave on the rear suspension; a desperate attempt to mitigate vibration, perhaps, or simply a reflection of the unsettling fragility of the entire weekend.

The air at Brands Hatch hung thick with more than just Kent drizzle. Clarke’s shunt wasn’t simply a tragedy; it was a brutal illustration of the escalating aggression simmering beneath the surface of these young drivers. Observe the data – Eng secured pole in both races, a testament to his consistency, yet the final podium positions reveal a disconcerting trend: drivers leading from pole consistently ceded ground in the second stint. A curious pattern emerges: a 1. 3-second average lap time delta between drivers starting within the top three, suggesting a significant, almost imperceptible, disadvantage to commencing a race from the front.

F1ABY Tales

The air still tasted of metal and something far worse – disbelief. Clarke’s spin, a moment of sheer mechanical failure, had unleashed a chaos that felt entirely too familiar. Soucek, predictably, took the win, but the victory felt hollow, didn’t it? That wheel, a detached piece of machinery, had delivered a brutal punctuation mark to Henry’s career. Wickens, ever the quiet observer, finished second, no doubt already calculating the shift in momentum. You could practically hear the whispers about contractual obligations, about the sponsors demanding a narrative. Don’t mistake grief for weakness; the paddock is a viper’s nest, and sentiment is a luxury few can afford. This wasn’t just a tragedy; it was a brutal demonstration of power.

Let’s begin. The rain, of course, always brings out the best – and worst – in people. Henry’s father, Graham, was a silent storm, a low-grade fury radiating from the Surtees garage. You could practically taste the bitterness clinging to the air, a palpable thing. Clarke, bless his youthful ambition, simply didn’t see it coming. A catastrophic error, yes, but the physics of it – a detached wheel, a tragic trajectory – felt almost… deliberate. Wickens, ever the professional, offered a curt word of condolence to Graham, a gesture likely calculated to minimize future fallout. The paddock buzzed, not with grief, but with the quiet, frantic assessment of damage – to reputations, to contracts, to the very fabric of this sport. A grim reminder, isn’t it, that victory can be so easily snatched away by the most capricious of forces.