Dino Beganovic led Hitech GP 1-2 in sprint FIA F2 race in Baku, ahead of Luke Browning and Alex Dunne.
Beganovic was able to get the launch he needed to take the lead into Turn 1, but contact for polesitter Rafael Villagómez and Josep María Martí left the Mexican driver pointing the wrong way on corner exit, while the Campos Racing driver retired in the pitlane. Further on, Oliver Goethe suffered a spin after tagging the wall at Turn 2, which brought out the Safety Car.
Racing resumed at the end of Lap 4, and Beganovic waited as long as he could before getting things restarted, before retaining the lead ahead of Montoya. Leonardo Fornaroli was able to put a move on compatriot Gabriele Minì at Turn 3 to take sixth place from the PREMA Racing driver.
With DRS enabled though, Minì slipstreamed his way back through for P6 at the start of Lap 7. Stenshorne was on the attack up ahead, and with a brave dive to the inside of Montoya into Turn 3 seized second place in the TRIDENT. Lap 8 and title rivals Fornaroli and Jak Crawford went wheel-to-wheel into Turn 1, the latter able to pass the Invicta Racing driver to take P7.
Stenshorne’s impressive race debut was over later in the lap, as he slowed and pulled over into retirement. With the TRIDENT stuck on track, the Virtual Safety Car was deployed and later converted into a full Safety Car. That was withdrawn at the end of Lap 12 and in the meantime, light rain had started to fall. Beganovic waited as long as he could once more and controlled the restart to retain the lead.
Alexander Dunne was looking for a move at Turn 3, diving down the inside of Browning to take third place from his Hitech rival. Lap 15 and Dunne had a sizeable lock-up into Turn 1, allowing Browning to move back through for third, leaving the Rodin driver with a big flat spot on his front left. The Irish driver fell out of DRS range to Browning ahead and Minì was able to take advantage, using DRS to clear Dunne into the first corner on Lap 16.
Leader Beganovic was comfortable out in front and over four seconds clear of Montoya, who had Browning to worry about, with the Williams Racing Development Driver in DRS range. The Briton took second place at Turn 1 on Lap 18 to make it a Hitech 1-2 with four laps remaining. Dunne made another move into Turn 3 to take fourth back from Minì.
One lap later, Crawford was able to take fifth from the Italian as the PREMA driver began to struggle. Teammate Montoya’s race was run on Lap 19 as he slowed and dropped out of the points, handing third to Dunne. Onto the final lap, Fornaroli was on the attack, passing Minì with a brave move around the outside of Turn 3 to take fifth, but the Championship leader made slight contact with the wall in the process.
Beganovic was well clear of the action behind him though, winning his first F2 race by over six seconds back to teammate Browning. Dunne completed the podium in third for Rodin. Crawford took valuable points in fourth place, just 0.3s off the podium, while Fornaroli was able to hold onto fifth. Richard Verschoor pipped Minì in a drag race to the line to earn sixth from P11 on the grid, leaving the PREMA driver seventh, as Victor Martins rounded out the points in P8.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1969358561948934504
UPDATE: Following the conclusion of the FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race in Baku, two drivers have received post-session penalties. Firstly, Laurens van Hoepen has been handed a time penalty. The TRIDENT driver was alleged to have caused a collision with Cars 15 and 4 at Turn 2 on the opening lap of the race. Following the Sprint, the Stewards heard from van Hoepen, Ritomo Miyata and Arvid Lindblad along with their team representatives and examined available video evidence.
They concluded that Car 22 had been wholly at fault for the collision. As a result, they applied a 10-second time penalty to the Dutch driver. With the application of his penalty, van Hoepen remains P17 in the classification. Finally, Kush Maini has been handed a time penalty. The DAMS Lucas Oil driver made contact with Car 16, Rodin Motorsport’s Amaury Cordeel at Turn 2.
After the race, the Stewards heard from both of the drivers involved and their respective team representatives and examined available video evidence. They determined that Car 12 had misjudged the braking zone and hit the back of Car 16. Due to the low speeds of the cars at the point of collision, the Stewards deemed it a mitigating factor and assigned the lesser penalty of five-seconds. Due to Maini not being classified in the Sprint Race, his time penalty is converted into a grid drop of three places for the Baku Feature Race.
[The story is as per press release]
