Their 7th 1-2 of the season took Malta Force beyond the possibility of being caught in race 1 – their dominance has been incredible and, whilst I don’t think anyone will ever get close to the 1217 points scored in 2018 by Scuderia Basilea, in the hands of Maciej Mlynek and Stephane Rouault, they could score over 1000 points, which would be an incredible achievement.
Race 1 was relatively straightforward. In a smaller grid here of only 22 cars, Malta Force lined up P2 and P3, with Jasse Lahtinen starting ahead of them on pole position. Jasse held them off for 13 laps before his tyres screamed enough, and he pitted for a new set. Majka followed him in, but Andrzejewski stayed out for another lap. This overcut, barely believeably, enabled him to jump Lahtinen, who proceeded to tag the rear of the Malta Force driver as he exited the pits.
Lahtinen proceeded to fend of Mateusz Majka as Andrzejewski stormed off into the distance, until the very final lap, where Jasse inexplicably threw away 2nd place by outbraking himself into turn 7. Through went the Malta Force driver to complete the aforementioned 1-2.
Race 2 saw Alessandro Iannone take reverse grid pole, and the impressive Italian stayed there for 18 of the 21 laps, ahead of Menno Klont. The two Malta Forces moved through the pack with relative ease with Majka P3 and Andrzejewski P7 at this point. Then, disaster for Iannone, as he span exiting turn 3 and lost his front wing on the inside wall. Through went Klont.
Menno’s first victory came in 2014. He won once that year, then twice in 2015. Then there was a 9 year gap to last year, where he took a victory at Imola. This season he’s now had 2, after securing the win from a closely-following Mateusz Majka.
Frank Hamming took a well-deserved P3 having qualified on the front row due to the reverse grid gods.
The two Malta Forces are now separated by only 29 points – Pawel behind Mateusz. With two rounds to go, it’s going to be extremely close between the pair for the title.
The event though belonged to Malta Force. Will the ever-present FS1 team finally move up to SL2 in 2026? Time will tell.
