Leonardo Fornaroli stormed to his long-awaited first victory in Formula 2 as he wins the Sprint Race at the British GP.
Starting grid
Friday’s qualifying session decided the grid line-up for the sprint race. With the top 10 positions reversed, the field was ready to go around the iconic Silverstone track.
Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli took reverse pole and was joined by Kush Maini on the front row. The second row consisted of Dino Beganovic and championship leader Richard Verschoor.
Next was Joshua Durksen and Sebastian Montoya. Roman Staněk and Jak Crawford occupied the fourth row. Then came McLaren junior Alex Dunne, and as Victor Martins set a solid flying lap to take pole in the feature race, the Frenchman lined up tenth for the sprint.
Additionally, other notable starting positions included Red Bull junior, Arvid Lindblad, eleventh on the grid. Hitech’s Luke Browning in twelfth for his home race, and another Red Bull junior, Pepe Marti, down in 20th after a disappointing qualifying for both Campos drivers. Ritomo Miyata lined up last in P22 after not being able to set a lap time in qualifying due to an issue with his car.
Yellow flags as they prepare to go
As the field lined up and prepared to go for the 21 laps and 10 points to grab for the winner, there was already trouble.
Before the sprint begun, the yellow flags were being waved as Dino Beganovic was not able to move properly out of his grid box. The driver who was meant to start third now had to be pushed by the marshals and prepare for a disappointing pit lane start. A disastrous start for the Swedish driver.
Once the field got going, the sprint started with a bang as everyone immediately rocketed to gain positions.
Kush Maini had a great launch off the line and led the pack through the first corner. Fornaroli fought to take back his position while Maini had to get his elbows out to defend. While trying to defend, Maini left a little gap open that Fornaroli immediately attacks to take back the lead.
Meanwhile further back, Pepe Marti battled his way through the field and manages to gain six positions launching himself into P13 already before the end of the first lap.
The battles of the mid-field
Gabriele Mini also seized the opportunity after a solid start and climbed his way up to P12, as Montoya gained three positions to place himself in the top three. At the same time, Marti was not giving up, determined to get into the top ten as fast as possible.
The battle of the Brits began with Arvid Lindblad and Luke Browning, one attempting to defend and the other to overtake. When Browning looks to consider a potentially bold move, his race engineer comes on the radio to tell him to “stay smart”, which the Hitech driver does and stays in ninth.
By lap 7, the Hitech driver appears to be sick of being stuck behind Lindblad as he finally makes a bold move, almost having contact, and gets past him. Down the Wellintong straight Lindblad tries to attack back, however with pressure from Verschoor less than a second behind, the Red Bull junior was forced to defend instead of attack.
A scrambled incident
Lap 9 led to slight chaos as a scramble between Dunne and Mini came to play.
Alex Dunne breaks late with a lock up and with Mini close behind, Mini attempts to go around the outside in Turn 4. He’s quickly pushed off the track and into the grass by Dunne who makes contact with Mini’s front-wing. Dunne suffered a puncture from the contact, which soon had his tyre falling off, thus forcing the McLaren junior into the pits on Lap 9.
Yellow flags came out on Lap 10 as the debris from the incident with Mini and Dunne still lay around Turn 4.
The pressure continues
In the front, Fornaroli keeps his position as the race leader by 1.2 seconds. Maini in second is under pressure from Montoya, less than half a second behind. Meanwhile, the rest of the field were battling to gain momentum with the tiny gaps. From there it is a DRS train from second to ninth place.
The stewards eventually inform that the conclusion of the Turn 4 incident was a 10 second time penalty for Mini for causing a collision. The stewards are having a busy afternoon as there is another investigation on Lap 14. This time between Miyata and Cordeel for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Miyata received a 10 second penalty for this.
In the front, Montoya made a move on Maini, stealing second place and immediately attempting to create a gap behind. The pressure continued for Maini as Stanek goes around the outside. Maini did everything to defend his position, which almost led to contact between the two.
Down the line, Browning kept trying to put pressure on the car ahead as he cannot make it past Martins yet.
Alex Dunne was forced to retire in the pit lane on Lap 18. Likely due to the damage from the earlier contact with Mini.
Chaos to the finish line
Battle for third place continues as the cars are bunching up down the Hamilton straight. Seven cars are right behind each other, each of them fighting to get past. Maini graps onto his third place, even with everyone scrambling to change the order.
On Lap 20, Stanek goes around the outside of Maini and finally manages to pass him. However, he potentially looked to be around the outside when the move was made. If the stewards decide he was not in front at the apex, he could receive a penalty.
The very last lap comes with chaos as there is contact between Browning and Martins which has the debris flying everywhere. The two Williams juniors battled for P7 and as they come together, the contact appeared to be a racing incident. Martins seemed to push Browning out and close the gap while the Brit made a bold move to overtake. At the back, Esterson spun but luckily was able to keep the car going and eventually finish the race.
Up front, Fornaroli storms across the line and finally secures his first win in Formula 2. With a double podium for Invicta racing, as both Fornaroli and Stanek fought for their top three finish places, made it an incredible day for the team.
Provisional Race Results:
- L. Fornaroli
- S. Montoya
- R. Stanek
- K. Maini
- J. Durksen
- J. Crawford
- L. Browning
- R. Verschoor
- V. Martins
- A. Lindblad
- J.M. Marti
- O. Goethe
- S. Meguetounif
- G. Mini
- J. Bennett
- R. Villagomez
- C. Shields
- D. Beganovic
- A. Cordeel
- R. Miyata
- M. Esterson
- A. Dunne (DNF)
