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Durksen wins incident-filled F2 sprint race from Fornaroli and Browning, Lindblad P10
AIX Racing’s Joshua Durksen won a rather complicated Formula 2 sprint race from Invicta’s Leonardo Fornaroli and Hitech’s Luke Browning
As it happened
The first sprint race of the F2 season saw F3 champion Leonardo Fornaroli start in P1 ahead of Joshua Durksen. DAMS, Rodin and Trident drivers were slapped with a ten-place grid penalty by the FIA for illegal testing violations for both the short race and the feature of the first weekend of racing action for the feeder series. With polesitter, Gabriele Mini penalised with a two-place grid drop after hindering his rivals’ laps in Friday’s qualifying.
Off the line Durksen managed to get the drop and the inside line on Fornaroli, taking the lead at turn one.
After the first lap, Victor Martins had to abandon the session after the Frenchman lost the rear coming out of turn 5, hitting the wall on exit and puncturing his left rear, and incurring potentially in some suspension damage. With Martins leaving his stricken car on the run-off just outside of Turn 6. The ART driver had had a complicated started being forced off the track at Turn 1. His DNF resulted in a VSC as track staff got the car off the track.
When the session restarted on lap 4, Durksen managed to build a gap to his Italian pursuer, edging him out of DRS range, whilst Williams junior, Luke Browning got ever close to Fornaroli and threatened to take the new Invicta driver’s P2.
Jak Crawford retired from the race on lap 5 due to mechanical related issues. As Fornaroli creeped in to Durksen and got within DRS range of the Paraguayan prompting an exciting battle for the lead. Stanek, Fornaroli’s teammate, tried to have a look on the inside of Dino Beganovic into Turn 11, but the move resulted in no positions being swapped as Beganovic fended off the attack successfully.
F3 championship runner-up, Gabriele Mini was picking up places as he overtook Pepe Marti at Turn 11. Oliver Goethe performed an intelligent and patient maneuver that spread from Turn 12 all the way to Turn 14, when he managed to pick off Rodin Motorsport’s Alexander Dunne.
On lap 6 a third driver joined Martins and Crawford on the list of DNF’s, as sim racer turned real-life driver, Max Esterson, beached his Trident car on the gravel trap on the outside of Turn 6, triggering a Safety Car.
On lap 10 the race resumed and Durksen once again managed to get the drop on Fornaroli, as Browning continued to chase the Italian down for P2.
Further back, Sebastian Montoya, son of Grand Prix winner, Juan Pablo Montoya, closed up to Stanek, but the overtake opportunity could not be created in the end.
Browning went from hunter to hunted as the Dutchman racing for MP Motorsport, veteran Richard Verschoor stepped on the gas and put the pressure on the young British driver.
A terrifying moment took over the event as Beganovic found himself spinning in the fast sections of Turns 9 and 10, with all drivers fortunately managing to avoid the young driver. Stanek was chasing down Beganovic as the latter spun, prompting a message from the Invicta driver to his team “That was lucky, mate”.
As the race surpassed the halfway mark, Durksen consolidated his lead at the front, increasing the gap to Fornaroli to 2.1 seconds, leaving Fornaroli to fend off Williams junior, Browning as the pair fought for P2.
Sami Meguetounif had misfortune of replicating almost exactly the spin suffered by Beganovic, albeit without the same luck as he failed to regain control of his car which ultimately ended up in the gravel trap on the outside of Turn 10. Although the Trident driver complained about being squeezed into the wall, in reality it was a matter of pushing a bit too much on corner entry which resulted in the eventual spin.
Racing action would resume on lap 17, leaving Durksen to work his restart magic once again as he chose to went early this time, accelerating from the entry into Turn 11, effectively catching Fornaroli out once again. All this whilst Prema teammates, Montoya and Mini fought each other for P6.
Durksen once again flaunted his exceptional pace as he started building the gap to Fornaroli, that the Safety Car neutralised, clocking in the fastest lap.
Ritomo Miyata proved to be having an off-weekend as he lost control of his ART car coming within inches of the wall.
Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad had a rather solid. Having started P10, after all the incidents the British talent found himself in P9 in the final laps of the race, showing great adaptability and measure to keep himself out of trouble in what was a rather tough race.
On lap 20, Stanek in a bid to reach the podium put in the fastest lap of the race. However, he did not join the podium fight alone, as Montoya and Mini followed the Czech driver and crashed the party at the front.
In the final moments of the race Dunne and Mini started trading in fastest laps, with the Italian heading into the final lap of the race as the fastest man on track. All this whilst the Rodin driver overtook Lindblad for P10 on the entry of Turn 13, as the Red Bull junior lost performance on his old tyres.
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