Felipe Drugovich gets his fourth race win of the season at Zandvoort alongside Richard Verschoor in P2 and Ayumu Iwasa in P3.
Placing one hand on the F2 title, Felipe Drugovich has extended his championship lead after taking a feature race win at his team’s home race. The MP Motorsport driver made his intentions clear from the start, after closing off Doohan into turn 1 he remained relatively unchallenged throughout, even withstanding a safety car restart, in a dominant show of skill and talent. Sunday’s win sees the Brazilian within touching distance of the drivers’ championship which with only two rounds left, looks set to be heading his way.
‘It’s so great to be able to, first of all, get the job done, get the pole position, get the win and especially at the home race for the team. I really wanted to make sure I got it done today. We did it so yeah, I’m very happy. The car was awesome and I think we judged it perfectly, didn’t take any risks so yeah, perfectly judged.’
Felipe Drugovich in the post-race press conference
Verschoor ran a longer first stint than his nearest competitors coming out behind Drugovich and very quickly overtaken by Jack Doohan. Later contact in a safety car restart saw Verschoor tag Doohan from behind – unintentionally ending the Aussie’s race – allowing the unscathed Dutchman to take the second step on the podium. Getting a podium at his home race was largely overshadowed by the contact but after receiving no post-race penalty Verschoor was free to celebrate his 3rd podium of the season.
‘I have to say sorry to Jack, it was definitely not my intention to hit him. I thought everybody was going and then we all slowed I locked all my wheels but I couldn’t avoid it. It’s not the way I want to finish second…anyway, I’m happier that we can score consistently now.’
Richard Verschoor
Ayumu Iwasa’s team opted for the overcut strategy in Zandvoort, which worked wonders in allowing the Japanese driver to get the advantage over Dennis Hauger and claim the final podium position. Iwasa led a clean and mature drive, keeping himself out of trouble and executing the strategy perfectly to take his 5th podium of the F2 season.
‘I’m happy about the result and my pace in the Feature Race because I was very quick even in yesterday’s Sprint Race, but we kept the good speed in the Feature Race as well. It was very good. I was thinking that the race will be quite tough with some accidents and some Safety Cars. I think it was good because we were thinking about the prime option strategy as well, but the option prime was better for sure.’
Ayumu Iwasa
Post-race penalties
After both making contact under the safety car, Roy Nissany and David Beckmann were each given a retrospective ten-second time penalty for driving erratically. The penalties drop Beckmann from 8th to 16th – thus promoting Jehan Daruvala into a points position – and Nissany from P15 to P17. Due to the incident the DAMS driver was also given two penalty points which brings his total to 13, Nissany will therefore be suspended from the next round in Monza.
How the championships stand
A win for Felipe Drugovich saw him place one hand on the championship trophy as he now stands 69 points ahead of Pourchaire in 2nd with only 78 points left up for grabs this season. Drugovich played it cool in the post-race press conference stating “I think we just need to keep doing whatever we’re doing, it’s working. I’m very grateful for this and hopefully, we can get the title [in Monza].” Further down the standings there have been a few changes with Ayumu Iwasa taking 6th from Enzo Fittipaldi and Juri Vips taking 8th from Jehan Daruvala.
To round up an incredible weekend for the home team MP Motorsport, they have jumped past ART Grand Prix and Carlin to take the top spot of the constructors’ championship – the two other teams drop down to 2nd and 3rd respectively. A double DNF in Sunday’s feature race has caused Virtuosi Racing to drop down to 7th with Iwasa’s podium taking DAMS up to 6th.