Verschoor's astounding drive propels him to win in Jeddah!

Jak Crawford was able to retain the lead at the start of the race as Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad had contact with Williams’ Luke Browning, and then lost P5 to McLaren junior Alex Dunne.

On lap 2, the British driver then dropped to P7 after Campos Racing teammate Pepe Marti overtook him around the outside into the sequences of Turns 1 and 2.

DRS had apparently not been enabled by race direction, which made it difficult for Browning to get past Leo Fornaroli.

At the end of lap 6 the mandatory round of pitstop would start, but into the final corner, Van Amersfoort’s John Bennet broke his front wing, leaving debris around the final turn and down the beginning of the start finnish straight.

Stanek and Mini tried to prey on Fornaroli’s tyre situation but after the three car battle, the Italian Prema Racing driver bolted to the pits.

Leader, Crawford came in the following tour, on lap 8, and his race win contender, Victor Martins came in a lap later, ahead of the American Aston Martin junior driver, albeit on cold tyres.

However early into the lap the VSC was triggered to remove the front wing debris from Bennett’s . Alex Dunne, known as a very aggressive driver, braked too late into Turn 1, went off and then rejoined the track jumping onto Browning’s path. The Irishman was then told by the Rodin pitwall to give Browning the position back as soon as the race went back to green.

It was Richard Verschoor, Kush Maini and Roman Stanek in the top 3. However they were still to make their pitstop. The net leaders, Martins and Crawford duelled into the sequence of the first four corners, from which the Frenchman emerged victorious. Only for a lap though, as Crawford, with the assistance of DRS, flew past Martins down the main straight regaining the virtual lead of the race, P9 on the track.

On lap 13, Marti doved down the inside of Dunne and with Browning giving the Spaniard driver DRS, he was able to defend his recently gained position from the Irish McLaren junior. As Marti went for an overtake on Browning, the British driver broke too late and didn’t make the corner, prompting complaints from the Spaniard.

In the lead of the race, Verschoor was lapping at the same pace as the net race leader, Jak Crawford.

Marti went for the outside of Turn 1 this time, but Browning pushed the Spaniard wide. However, the following lap, Marti got a good run on Browning out of the final corner and managed to complete the overtake with DRS assistance.

Dunne then instantly tried to make the move on Browning, but the British driver took the run off and retained his place.

Red Bull junior Oliver Goether was fighting for P3 with Invicta’s Stanek, but the Czech driver went off, coming back on track in front of Goethe, triggering complaints from the MP Motorsport racer. Positions remained as they were.

The Stewards then announced on lap 18 that they were investigating Dunne for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner ahead of Browning, for which he was subsequently penalised with 5 seconds added to his race time.

Williams junior Browning wasn’t out of the woods yet, as race direction showed him the black and white flag for track limits.

Goethe stopped on lap 20 and came out behind Sebastian Montoya in P17, which put Verschoor within a realistice shot for the feature race win.

Verschoor stopped on lap 23, and emerged in P2 ahead of Martins and behind of leader, Crawford.

On lap 26, Lindblad, yesterday's sprint race winner, took P10 from Mini and set himself on the pursuit of Dunne.

Verschoor on supersoft tyres then proceeded to hunt down Crawford, managing to cut the gap down to 1.3s. As both drivers started the final lap, the Dutchman cleared Crawford before both drivers entered Turn 1.