Mid-season Academy Report: Winning ways for our F2 rookies

Alex and Logan aren't the only drivers enjoying some well-earned rest.

The Williams Racing Driver Academy members have had a busy 2024 as well and are taking an extended break from the cockpit before tackling the last part of the season.

Franco Colapinto and Zak O'Sullivan, our Academy pair in Formula 2, have nearly had it as challenging as those in F1 after 10 gruelling weekends across three continents.

Both have had to learn an all-new chassis for the series, plus how to handle scheduled pit stops in their rookie seasons, yet have three victories show they were ready for the step up.

Here is how Franco and Zak's year has gone so far.

Franco, our Argentine ace, has already had a year to remember after stepping into the FW46 at Silverstone to participate in his first FP1 session.

The "amazing" weekend he enjoyed over the British Grand Prix is down to hard work paying off with impressive results over the year, leading to three podium finishes and a P6 position in the standings.

Yet 2024 didn't start the right way for Franco — quite literally. An incorrect car placement in the first Sprint Race of the season at Bahrain meant a 10-second stop-go penalty for his full-season F2 debut.

Undeterred, Franco stormed through the field in the Feature Race to advance from P15 to P6 and proved he could tame his new car and fight against more experienced drivers.

After some misfortune and mistakes in Saudi Arabia and Australia, Europe was where his performance and consistency began to shine through.

Perhaps there's something in Imola's water, or maybe Franco is an Emilia Romagna expert, but he repeated his 2022 feat of taking a maiden win at the Italian circuit this year.

It was a last-lap pass in F3 two years ago, and history repeated in 2024 in F2 when an audacious overtake on championship hopeful Paul Aron took Franco to the winner's step.

"I think now we are starting to show how quick the car is," were his words after leaving Imola, and they proved true as the European rounds began.

A run of five consecutive point-scoring weekends only ended in Belgian rain when reduced running prevented Franco's Sprint Race P8 from being rewarded with points to his championship tally.

Nonetheless, the summer saw his first F2 Feature Race silverware in Spain and Austria.

The Spanish speed from Franco meant he was just 0.006s from his maiden F2 pole position, too, but he was more than happy to settle for a P2 finish from his P3 start.

He ran an alternate strategy race in Spielberg that required perfect tyre management to pull off. Nursing the hard tyres worked well, and six overtakes following a late pit stop doubled his Feature Race silverware total.

Franco will head into F2's final four rounds with plenty to be pleased from his 2024 efforts.

There have been the highest highs and the most frustrating lows for Zak in his first F2 campaign.

Our British teenage star won one of the most memorable Monaco gambles in motorsport, for example, but has had to endure more races on the verge of scoring points than he would've liked.

Formula 2 has seen a shake-up of the expected order this year, and his ART Grand Prix team, a long-standing front-running outfit, fell a little behind in the opening rounds before finding their feet.

Irrespective, Zak leads his more experienced teammate in the standings and jumps into the summer break with another trophy, so has reasons to be encouraged.

A double-points weekend in Bahrain started the 2024 season off the right way. Zak was agonisingly close to celebrating his debut weekend on the podium, too, after finishing less than a second away from P3 in the Feature Race's final classification.

However, those first days in the Middle East became the high-water mark for Zak over the subsequent rounds, where some collisions and penalties hindered chances of progress.

Aside from a solitary point in Melbourne, it wasn't until F2 arrived at the jewel-in-the-crown event that Zak added to his championship score — and he did so in style.

In a location famed for the Monte Carlo Casino, a winning hand landed in Zak's favour on Sunday when he took an unlikely Feature Race victory.

"The timing of that was kind of one in a million," admitted Zak, who ran 40 of Monaco's 42 laps on a single tyre set hoping for a Safety Car.

Though one didn't materialise, a VSC slowed down the track just as he finally pitted, securing him the win. Had he waited just four seconds longer, he would've faced disqualification.

A frustrating few rounds followed that success, but Zak was always in the midfield fight as he learned the new F2 chassis.

Three top-10 finishes in four races only netted him two points, thanks to the Sprint Race scoring allocation only reaching the eight highest-placed finishers.

Zak's home race at Silverstone, one he swept pole position at in his rookie F3 year, also had a finish just shy of points when he crossed the line P11, even though he progressed eight places from his penalty-affected starting position.

Yet there was to be another unconventional victory before the summer break arrived.

The soaking Spa-Francorchamphs Sprint Race saw Zak starting from pole position and leading every lap.

This win wasn't a simple lights-to-flag triumph, though. Our race-winning teenager waited hours to get going due to heavy rainfall and then avoided any trouble in the tricky conditions that eventually became a red flag.

More points one day later in the much drier Feature Race is the springboard that Zak will look to use when he resumes his season at Monza at the end of the month.