Formula 2: Saturday Sprint won by Liam Lawson

In Formula 2, before the season finale, a very curious situation arose: if Felipe Drugovic secured the title for himself a long time ago, and it is unlikely that anyone will take Theo Purcher from the second row of the individual standings, then it will the lottery for third place is still open.

Logan Sargent is currently holding this line, but right behind him are Jack Duane, Jehan Daruwala and Enzo Fittipaldi, and all three are tied on points – 126 each. If Logan manages to outrun them all in both races of the weekend, he will then remain third in the youth championship and be guaranteed an FIA super license.

But the advantage of the American racer over the closest pursuers is only seven points, and if for some reason he is not lucky and something goes wrong, he may have difficulties.

In Saturday’s sprint, Sargent started from fifth place, but Duane started from race six, who was of course also in a fighting spirit and clearly going all out to battle for third place in the individual standings. Looking ahead, let’s say the Australian was unable to solve this problem.

Richard Fershhor started from pole and had no intention of relinquishing the lead, but Liam Lawson, who also started the race from the front row, was determined to get ahead of the Dutchman before the first corner, which he announced before the race . He didn’t succeed, Fershor kept the first position, but after the first lap the race was stopped by red flags due to a rather serious accident with Fittipaldi and Daruwala that happened in the 3rd corner.

All cars returned to the pit lane. Both drivers left the wrecked cars on their own, but the marshals and repair crew of the Yas Marina track had to do a lot of work to repair the badly damaged fencing.

It was clear on the video replay that Daruvale and Fittipaldi were unable to avoid contact in the early crowd, causing their cars to lose stability and to veer at high speed to the side of the road where they crashed into guardrails on the left side of the track .

After the start, the order remained unchanged only in the top three, but then there were rearrangements: Logan Sargent lost four positions and fell back to 9th place, Jack Doohan was ahead of him in 8th place and Theo Purscher moved up to 6th place and gained two places back. Drugovic also started with confidence and after the restart he had to continue the race in 5th place.

But before the restart race management ordered Sargent’s car to move up three positions, ie he moved up to sixth, which was quite important for the American as he was once again ahead of Duane.

When the fences were repaired, the race resumed behind the safety car. At the restart, Fershhor held onto the lead, followed by Lawson, third was Amaury Kordil. Soon Duane attacked Sargent, but he managed to hold the position.

Ayumu Iwasa and Frederik Vesti started an interesting duel for 11th position, and it looked like the Dane was ahead of yesterday’s qualifying winner, but he bounced back and nicely overtook the opponent on the outside stretch. Shortly afterwards, however, Vesti Iwasu managed to stay ahead, after which Yuri Vips also overtook the Japanese.

On the ninth lap of the race, Liam Lawson was close to the lead and able to use DRS, so he quickly took the lead by braking later into Turn 6. Richard tried to counterattack and he had a chance to take the position but the New Zealand Red Bull Racing reserve fought back and started to build up the lead.

Duane continued to put pressure on Logan Sargent and the American started making mistakes on the brakes, although it is fundamental for him to finish ahead of Jack. He is also not indifferent to how many points Lawson scores, who had excellent chances to win the sprint, but Sargent could not prevent this.

On lap 17, Drugovic went on the attack against Dennis Hauger, and although the first attempt to get in front of the Norwegian failed, the reigning F2 champion didn’t let go and brought things back to a close in the straight due to the skid streaming and DRS. Felipe was now in fourth place.

Three laps from the finish, a whole pack of racers crept up on Hauger, led by Logan Sargent. But they could all use DRS, so despite the minimal intervals between cars, there were no permutations in this group.

But Drugovic got ahead of Amaury Kordil, though he defended desperately, and moved up to third position, which certainly pleased the Aston Martin F1 team, with whom he will team up in 2023, but will already drive their car during testing in Abu Dhabi.

Kordila then attempted to stay ahead of Hauger, but made a braking error and ended up off the track, pushing the Belgian up to fourth. But not for long: Dennis overtook him on the last lap, but then the race was over and all the other top ten riders stayed in place.

Liam Lawson took his third win of the season, a marked improvement in his standings, thanks in part to Daruvala and Fittipaldi retiring with no points. He moved up to 4th ahead of Jack Duane. Sargent still retains third position in the championship, but the final joining of forces will only be decided after Sunday’s race.

Sprint results on Saturday