The road to F1 continues with F2 returning this weekend here at the iconic Barcelona track, home to preseason testing for F2 provides drivers a track that they should know like the back of their hand.
Jack Doohan left it to the last minute to take his second pole for the F2 season, the Virtuosi Racing was able to edge out Hitch Grand Prix Juri Vips to take pole.
Juri Vips whom if you watch F1 would’ve seen him in FP1 driving the red bull as part of the F1 new rules stating that all teams must put a juniors/ rookie driver for at least 2 free practices this season. While we didn’t see much push for fast laps it looked to be a data collection free practice for the red bull team with the red bull junior driver. ART Grand Prix rounds out the top 3 positions with Frederik Vesti taking P3.
Different strategies took place in this qualifying session with some drivers waiting for last minute opportunities to clock their best time, to some racing when the track was empty and cleared. One driver that took the opportunity of the empty track was Felipe Drugovich whom was running p2 for most of the qualifying session and then taking provisional pole was knocked out by Doohan in the end with a difference of 0.043s to see him finish the session in P10 which allowed him to start from p1 in the sprint race due to reverse grid changes.
As mentioned Doohan took pole, Vips p2 and Vesti p3, another Red bull junior driver Jehan Daruvala with Prema racing finished p4 and rounding out the top 5 is American driver Carlin’s Logan Sargeant.
Sprint Race
With the reverse grid we expected to see Felipe Durgovich starting from P1 after he finished P10 in qualifying however he suffered a post qualifying penalty which saw him drop to forth on the grid. But he was able to get off the line quick and was able to take the lead from turn 1 and never looked back. He led every single lap of the 26 lap sprint race moving ahead of Iwasa and Sargent whom rounded out the other podium positions.
Calan Williams originally taking pole position due to Durgovich penalty stalled from pole on the formation lap forcing him to start from the pit lane but was able to make spots to finish the race in p16.
Jehan finished the race in p4 with pulling some amazing racing against leading driver in the championship standing Theo Pourchaire around turn 15 to claim the spot just short of podium.
We saw one DNF this sprint race Juri Vips tried to follow by making a move on Daruvala with a dive at turn 1 however spun off later by turn 4 and became beached in the gravel bringing out the safety car on lap 7 out of 26. Lap 9 saw safety car ending and racing was back on, Drugovich got a good start getting ahead of the final chicane to leave the rest of the grid with a decent gap.
With Drugovich’s win he was able to take the lead in the drivers championship ahead of Theo Pourchaire with a 5 point lead, and a total of 61 points. The rest of the standings did not change in the top 5 as we go into the feature race tomorrow with Doohan on pole.