Formula 2: Sprint Race
Anthoine has been part of our paddock since 2017. He was a fantastic driver who had a bright future ahead of him. He became GP3 Series Champion last year, and this season, he won twice in Formula 2, taking victories in Monaco, and at his home race in Le Castellet.
Formula 2: Sprint Race
Oscar Piastri became the first driver to follow up a victory in the FIA Formula 3 championship with a Formula 2 title in successive rookie seasons after finishing third in the opening Abu Dhabi Sprint race. You earned...
Ayumu Iwasa, a Honda Formula Dream Project (HFDP) driver, qualified 7th on the previous day in his first race on a street circuit and started from 4th on the grid in the Sprint Race, where a reverse grid is applied.
On the first lap, a crash at the back of the field brought on the Safety Car (SC), which led the race for five laps to clear the track, before the race resumed. Iwasa was passed by one car on the first corner immediately after the restart and dropped to 5th. In the meantime, on restart, multiple crashes occurred at the back of the pack and the SC was introduced again. While the SC was leading, the first-positioned car entered the pit road and dropped back, leaving Iwasa in 4th place. After seven laps with the SC intervention, the race resumed on Lap 14.
On Lap 15, Iwasa struggled to improve his pace as the tailing two cars breathed down his neck. He was then passed by the two cars, dropping to 6th place. The Japanese driver desperately defended his position from the chasing pack, but his pace failed to improve and on Lap 18 he was overtaken by two cars to drop to 8th place. Shortly afterwards, one of the cars that had overtaken Iwasa spun and he regained 7th position. On the final lap, Iwasa was able to defend his position from the cars closing in on from behind, and finished 7th in a generally difficult race. After the race, a car at a higher position was penalised and Iwasa was moved up to a 6th place finish to earn him 3 points.
Liam Lawson secured victory in what is likely to be his final FIA Formula 2 championship sprint race at the Yas Marina Circuit on Saturday in a race delayed by an hour after a red flag caused by a first lap crash between Jehan Daruvala and Enzo Fittipaldi at turn two.
Ultimately, the gap at the front extended to almost eight seconds at the chequered flag as Red Bull Junior Team racer Lawson clinched his fourth Sprint race victory of the season, although former Red Bull junior Verschoor was able to do enough to hold onto second place.
Series debutant Zane Maloney ended sixteenth for Trident in a race where he found himself embroiled in battles with Clement Novalak, Sato and Olli Caldwell. Novalak found his way ahead of the Barbados driver, as did Sato, although the clash with Correa saw the Japanese racer fall back to nineteenth.
The accidents started before the race could even begin, with both Enzo Fittipaldi and Ralph Boschung finding the wall on the reconnaissance lap. After sustaining significant damage, neither drivers were able to continue, making two retirements before the formation lap even started.
The ART Grand Prix driver initially finished second on the road behind race winner Oscar Piastri, although stewards had earlier issued a 10-second time penalty to Lundgaard for contact with Lirim Zendeli that ultimately ended his race.
According to the championship organisers: Lundgaard served his time penalty in the latter stages of the race, and with much happening in the pitlane and on the track, the FIA needed time to confirm whether the Dane had taken his time penalty in a proper manner.
The 2022 Silverstone Sprint Race, formally known as the 2022 Silverstone Formula 2 Race 1, was the thirteenth race of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 Championship, staged at the Silverstone Circuit in Silverstone, Northamptonshire, UK on 2 July 2022.[1] The race would see Jack Doohan score his maiden F2 victory in tricky wet-to-drying conditions, after Ayumu Iwasa ran out of time to catch the Australian racer.[2]
Qualifying for the Feature Race was used to set the grid for the Sprint, and had hence seen Jehan Daruvala claim pole position for the Saturday race, having claimed tenth on the grid for the Feature.[3] The Indian pilot would share the front row with Enzo Fittipaldi, while Doohan was to start from fourth behind Jüri Vips, the Estonian racer having kept his seat with Hitech Grand Prix after a turbulent two weeks off-track.[3][4]
Rain during qualifying for the British Grand Prix had resulted in a very wet Silverstone Circuit when the F2 field made their way onto the grid, prompting the officials to start the race from behind the Safety Car with two formation laps.[2] Daruvala made a measured getaway out of the final corner to open the race with a comfortable margin over Fittipaldi, with the rest of the field getting away in grid order behind the #2 Prema.[2]
Quick-fire moves by Fittipaldi and Doohan would see Daruvala fall to third, while Vips lost fifth to Iwasa, with the Japanese pilot quickly sweeping down the inside of Daruvala at Vale too to claim third.[2] Doohan, meanwhile, would set about pressuring Fittipaldi for the lead, having a half-look at Village, only for the Brazilian to get out of shape and gift him the lead without any real fight on lap seven, with the #3 Virtuosi quickly sprinting clear.[2]
Ahead of the Silverstone weekend it was revealed that Amaury Cordeel would be unable to take part, the Belgian pilot having picked up enough penalty points on his licence in the first twelve races of the season to merit an event ban.[5] The latest incident, a lap one collision with Olli Caldwell in the Baku Feature Race, had seen Cordeel become the first driver since Mahaveer Raghunathan to earn such a penalty, and hence left Van Amersfoort Racing searching for a replacement for the Silverstone round.[5]
On the eve of the weekend it was announced that David Beckmann would return to the series for a second time in place of the Belgian pilot, having raced for Charouz at Barcelona in place of Cem Bölükbaşı.[6]
Elsewhere there would be controversy off the track for Jüri Vips, as the Estonian racer was suspended from and later dropped by the Red Bull Junior Team over an incident while Vips was streaming a video game with Liam Lawson.[7] Vips was found to have used a racial slur while playing with Lawson, with Vips quickly apologising for using the term after his suspension by Red Bull.[7] Yet, Hitech Grand Prix would controversially decide to retain Vips' services for the rest of the 2022 season, team manager Oliver Oakes stating that it was better for Vips to use the opportunity to redeem himself and learn from his mistakes.[4]
Elsewhere, news that the Australian Grand Prix and the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne had extended their contract with F1 until 2035 would break ahead of the trip to Silverstone, which also saw a surprise announcement for both F2 and FIA F3.[8] Indeed, despite never having raced in the Southern Hemisphere at all, both F2 and FIA F3 would, from 2023, stage races in support of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, with the series entrants and organisers having previously regarded such events with caution due to travel costs.[8] Regardless, the move would coincide with a relative boom in interest in F2 and FIA F3 among Antipodean drivers, with Australia's Oscar Piastri having won the 2021 Championship, New Zealanders Marcus Armstrong and Liam Lawson both having won races, and Jack Doohan and Calan Williams making their debuts in 2022.
Another podium finish had seen Felipe Drugovich enhance his tally to 132 points for the season as the Baku weekend had come to a close, and with his main rivals having finished behind him the Brazilian racer's lead had also grown. Indeed, Drugovich left Azerbaijan with a 49 point lead over Théo Pourchaire in second, meaning the Brazilian pilot could afford to miss a whole round and still retain top spot in the series. Pourchaire himself was just ten ahead of Jehan Daruvala in third, Logan Sargeant had climbed to fourth, while Dennis Hauger was up into the top five after his second win of the campaign.
MP Motorsport retained the lead in the Teams' Championship as the sixth race weekend of the campaign concluded, the Dutch squad having moved onto 154 points for the season. They had new challengers in the form of Prema Racing, the defending Champions having moved back up to second but trailed the leaders by 26 points, with the Italian squad having moved four ahead of ART Grand Prix. Hitech Grand Prix and Carlin then completed the top five, with three points separating them, while Van Amersfoort Racing still propped up the table in their first F2 campaign.
Felipe Drugovich would retain a healthy advantage at the head of the Championship after the first race at Silverstone, the Brazilian pilot having surrendered only a single point to his closest rival. Indeed, Théo Pourchaire would only reduce Drugovich's lead to 48 points after the Silverstone Sprint, with Jehan Daruvala in third having actually lost ground to the leaders. Logan Sargeant was next up in fourth ahead of Enzo Fittipaldi, while Jack Doohan found himself nestled between Dennis Hauger and Marcus Armstrong with all three having scored 55 points after thirteen races.
Indian driver Kush Maini of Campos Racing fought off a strong challenge from Arthur Leclerc of DAMS in a rain-interrupted race to claim his first-ever Formula 2 podium with a third-place finish in the Sprint Race at Albert Park, in Melbourne on Saturday.
It took 2108 laps and almost 11,000km of racing in Formula 2 for Ralph Boschung to finally stand on the top step in Formula 2, but he clinched his first win in Bahrain on Saturday, conquering the sprint race to have his first taste of victory since 2016.
Asked whether he compares himself to the drivers he raced against all those years ago, he said: No, not really. For sure, I'm very happy for them. I've always had a good relationship with Alex Albon when I was racing GP3, such a nice and humble guy and remains nice and humble being an F1 driver, which I think is amazing. Same for the other guys, but I kind of didn't really have contact with them when I was racing in GP3. 041b061a72