Richard Verschoor took the feature FIA F2 win in shortened Azerbaijan race, ahead of Victor Martins and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Pole-sitter Verschoor retained the lead into Turn 1 but there was contact further back which led to an immediate Red Flag. Josep María Martí, Oliver Goethe and Kush Maini were the drivers involved after the Invicta Racing car didn’t pull away at lights out. It left Goethe and Martí unsighted and with nowhere to go in avoidance. Thankfully, all three were able to climb out of their cars unscathed.
After the clear up was completed, racing resumed with a rolling start and with the Feature condensed and running to a timed-finish versus the original full 29-lap distance. Verschoor got a great launch to keep the lead ahead of Antonelli and Martins in the top three and was 0.7s clear heading back onto the main straight for the second lap of racing. Martins meanwhile was in the perfect position to slipstream his way by Antonelli to take second into Turn 1.
One lap later and the ART driver was onto the back of the race leader and looking to make a move for P1. With 21 minutes to go, Martins had the DRS and ducked to the inside into Turn 1 to take the lead of the race. Trident teammate Christian Mansell moved himself up to sixth with a DRS pass on Sprint Race winner Joshua Duerksen at Turn 3.
The AIX Racing driver was the first in for a mandatory pit stop and he was joined by Jak Crawford and Luke Browning with 19 minutes left to run. Race leader Martins responded on the next lap along with Verschoor and Antonelli while Zane Maloney and Bortoleto continued on track from the top five. A slow stop for Martins left him third in the queue leaving however, as the PREMA of Antonelli got the jump on the French driver as Verschoor exited in front of them.
Maloney and Bortoleto were in for their mandatory stops on the following lap to switch to the Soft compound tyres and rejoined in the same order. Maloney though was able to come out ahead of Antonelli. However, on the run to Turn 3, there was contact between the two after a lock-up for the Rodin Motorsport driver that left Maloney in the runoff area. Martins took advantage to slip past the PREMA driver to move up to fifth on the road.
With 12 minutes left of the Feature Race, the gap between Verschoor and Martins stood at 2.3s as the ART driver chased down his rival once again. Nine minutes remaining and Martins had that down to 1.7s as he made incremental gains, particularly in the second sector of the lap. Across the line next time around and the gap stood at 1.3s.
With five minutes left of the race, Martins was on the cusp of DRS range, 1.1s back but unable to break into the window. The battle was over though when Gabriele Minì hit the wall at Turn 15, bringing out the Safety Car with two minutes to go. It meant the Feature Race was neutralised and Verschoor claimed his first race victory of the 2024 season.
Martins and Antonelli rounded out the podium in second and third respectively. Bortoleto earned the fastest lap point on the final racing lap in P4, enough for the Invicta driver to take the lead of the Drivers’ Championship, while Duerksen was P5 for AIX. Paul Aron was sixth for Hitech Pulse-Eight with Browning, Crawford, Hauger and Mansell in the points-paying positions.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1835239854113747351
UPDATE: Following the conclusion of the Formula 2 Feature Race in Baku, Invicta Racing’s Kush Maini has been handed two post-race sanctions. Firstly, Car 9 was alleged to have breached the 2024 FIA Formula 2 Technical Regulations, relating to a failure to engage the start up procedure at the beginning of the Feature Race.
The Stewards received a report from the Technical Delegate that Car 9’s data indicated that the driver did not engage the start set-up procedure for the start of the Feature Race, as required by the F2 2024 System User Manual. It constituted a breach of Article 1.6.1 of the FIA Formula 2 Technical Regulations and Article 10.15 of the F2 2024 System User Manual.
Consequently, Maini has been disqualified from the Baku Feature Race classification. Finally, Maini was alleged to have caused a collision at the start of the Feature Race. After the race, the Stewards heard from the Team Representative and examined available video evidence before determining that the driver of Car 9 had failed to engage the Start Set Up Procedure for the start of the race, an error that led to the car stalling on the grid causing the subsequent collision.
The Stewards determined that because of this, Maini was wholly responsible for the collision and, as a result, elected to hand him a 10-second time penalty. With Maini not finishing the Feature Race, his time penalty has been converted into a five-place grid penalty. Maini will serve the penalty at the next race in which he competes.
Here’s how F2 sprint race panned out in Azerbaijan
[Note: The story is as per press release]