Chaotic F2 sprint race sees unusual winner after a red flag restart
- GPblog.com
On Friday, Richard Verschoor secured his first F2 pole position. In Saturday's sprint race in Formula 2, there is a 'reversed grid' format which means Sundays's polesitter starts from P10. The session saw several safety cars and a red flag. In the end, Taylor Barnard managed to win the sprint race in which he scored his first F2 points.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli started the Monte Carlo sprint race in fourth place. He maintained this spot throughout the race, narrowly missing out on a podium. Oliver Bearman started from fifteenth place after a not-so-good qualifying session. He too suffered damage in the sprint race. He went wide and hit the wall hard at the final corner.
The big surprise of this session was Taylor Barnard. After all, he was last in the championship with zero points. In addition, he is also McLaren's reserve driver in Formula E, where he recently filled in because Sam Bird had broken his hand. To everyone's surprise, he did pick up points there. Bird has since returned to Formula E, so Barnard was able to compete in his own class again. In Monaco, he managed to win the sprint race.
Just before the end of the race, Zane Maloney crashed at Rascasse. The world championship leader caused the first red flag of the session. After about 20 minutes, the sprint race resumed with a rolling start. Several drivers restarted the sprint race on the soft tyre. Antonelli in fourth place on the supersofts. The young Italian eventually managed the fastest lap.