Red Bull junior Pepe Marti delivered a brilliant race for the victory at the Red Bull Ring as he takes his second win of the season.
Starting grid for the sprint race
After a tense qualifying battle on Friday, the F2 grid prepared for their first race of the Austrian GP weekend. As always, the top 10 in qualifying are reversed for the sprint race which makes the battle for the win all the more exciting and unpredictable.
This means that VAR’s John Bennett and AIX’s Joshua Dürksen share the front row. Behind them, championship leader Alex Dunne and Roman Staněk take up the second row. Next is Red Bull Junior Pepe Marti, joined by Amaury Cordeel. The fourth row consists of Gabriele Mini and Richard Verschoor. The top ten is rounded out by Victor Martins and the feature race polesitter, Leonardo Fornaroli.
Notably, the Red Bull junior currently third in the F2 championship, Arvid Lindblad, lined up P15 after a rough qualifying session and penalty for impeding. The Hitech drivers too ended up further behind than expected, with Luke Browning in P17 and Dino Beganovic P21. Cian Shields completes the grid as P22.
Lights out at the Red Bull Ring
Before the field got off to a start, the yellow flags were already waving as the DAMS of Jak Crawford was stuck on the grid. The American driver was to start from the pit lane instead of his intended P14 start.
When the five lights were out and the field ready to go, it got off to a quick start. While this is John Bennett debut on this circuit, he had a poor start and immediately dropped to fifth. Durksen had a wonderful launch off the line, immediately passing Bennett to take the lead. Already at the beginning of Lap 2 he managed to create a gap of over a second to the car behind.
Pepe Marti had a magnificent start and seized the opportunity to fight his way through the field. Taking second place quickly.
Dunne appeared to be moving before the start signal, which was noted by the FIA.
Major incident suspends the sprint race
Already on Lap 2, the red flag was out as a huge incident had three cars colliding. The Trident of Meguetounif flipped all the way over both Browning and Lindblad’s cars. If not for the halo, the Trident car would have infiltrated Browning’s cockpit as it landed on top of him before flipping upside-down in Turn 3. The dramatic racing incident thankfully appeared to leave all three drivers to be okay. They were quickly approached by the medical team, walked away from the track, and were confirmed to be okay.
Meguetounif was noted for causing this collision as he was attacking the tiny gap down the inside of Lindblad and Browning. Before going into the other two cars, and rolling over them.
Restart after the red flag
After the huge incident, the wait time was another additional ten minutes as the marshals cleared up the track and the drivers prepared to go again. The restart had Dürksen and Marti lined up on the front row, followed by Staněk and Cordeel on the second row. Esterson had a couple of warm up laps before the rolling start in order to help the timing system catch up and rejoin the field.
The day comes with huge problems for DAMS. When the drivers were to line up behind. the safety car, Kush Maini had to be pushed out of the pit lane. Jak Crawford, who had issues at the start, was watching on from the pit wall.
The sprint race restart had the drivers behind the safety car for two laps before continuing into a rolling start. The possibility of the race being reduced to a shorter distance was high.
As they finally got started again after the safety car went in, Dürkson was quick to push the petals and lead the pack. Just after the restart, the yellow flag was waving.
The red flags keep coming
Once again, the safety car was out. This time for the Ferrari Academy driver, Dino Beganovic who was turned around in the middle of Turn 3. Goethe made contact with the back of Beganovic, turning him around and unfortunately taking him out of the race. The Hitech driver has had a tricky run the past couple of rounds, and not been able to gain points for a few rounds.
In the meantime, Dunne received a five second penalty for the false start. Goethe was also noted for the contact with Beganovic in Turn 3.
As they go again
With 26 minutes counting down, 5 DNFs, and several laps to go, the safety car was ending. Durkson once again had a wonderful launch off the line and immediately breaking the possibility of DRS by created a gap of 1 second to Marti behind.
Montoya did a brave overtake on Alex Dunne on Lap 9, quickly followed by another great overtake on Martins. The Prema driver was quick to get his elbows out and fight his way up the field. Meanwhile, Goethe received a 10 second penalty for causing the collision with Beganovic.
By Lap 12, Marti was able to get into the DRS of Durksen down to Turn 4. In the dirty air behind Durksen, the Campos Racing driver attempted to get past him quickly. Durksen steps on the gas to keep Marti away.
While the majority of the field battled hard, Maini received a 5 second penalty for a safety car infringement. However, as he was 2 laps down it would not have affected his race much.
Battle for 10th place between Martins and Dunne, while Dunne goes wide but managed to stick closely behind with only a 0.3 seconds gap. Dunne tried to go on the outside of Martins, however Martins was quick to defend his position, not allowing the McLaren junior to make a move on him. On Lap 15, Martins was shoved wide in a brave move by Dunne. Who finally manages to get past him up the inside.
Marti takes the lead
By Lap 16, Durksen was under presssure by Marti only 0.3 behind. Marti reports that Durksen was weaving , Marti launched down the inside of Durksen and takes the lead on Lap 17. Already in the next corner, Durksen makes a move down the inside of Marti and quickly takes the lead back. Close behind them are Stanek and Cordeel eager to get into the battle for the lead.
Pepe Marti manages to make an opportunistic move to take the lead again. As Marti moves in without DRS leading a DRS train behind him, he was eager to figure out how to keep the pack back. By Lap 20, it has been a brilliant race for the race leader as he quickly gained three positions at the very start and battled to grab the lead.
Charging down to Turn 4, Durksen was right behind Marti wanting to take back the race lead.
Montoya hungry for a better weekend for Prema was attempting to attack Fornaroli, but was not yet close enough to attack. By Lap 25 out of 28, Montoya keeps close to Fornaroli
Battle to the chequered flag
Marti broke the DRS to Durksen, attempting to pull away even more to secure the win for Campos. Immediately putting Durksen under pressure as he had Staněk in his DRS with Cordeel closing in as well. Staněk looked eager to make a return to the podium as gave everything to attack Durksen. Durksen bravely defended his position and remained P2. Montoya makes another attack on Fornaroli and finally raced past him.
Cordeel spun the car around in Turn 3, leaving Mini to charge directly into him. Further causing Fornaroli to go into the back of Mini, and Bennett to collide into him as he could not find an exit out of the situation.
While the tense battles for points continues behind, the Red Bull Junior, Pepe Marti, charges over the finish line and takes the win. Marti drove an outstanding race from the seconds the lights went out. The Red Bull Junior gave everything to battle his way to the top at the Red Bull Ring.
Provisional Race Results:
- J.M.Marti
- J. Durksen
- R. Stanek
- R. Verschoor
- S. Montoya
- A. Dunne
- V. Martins
- R. Miyata
- R. Villagomez
- M. Esterson
- O. Goethe
- C. Shields
- A. Cordeel
- G. Mini
- J. Bennett
- L. Fornaroli
- K. Maini
DNF: D. Beganovic, L. Browning, A. Lindblad, S. Meguetounif, J. Crawford
