Formula 2: Iwasa won and led the individual classification

Sunday’s Formula 2 race, unlike yesterday’s sprint, was held in good weather, but that did not mean that events on the Melbourne Albert Park circuit developed according to a linear scenario. All kinds of surprises were enough, but they were not caused by the weather, but by other factors.

Ayumu Iwasa, a Japanese DAMS driver and member of the Red Bull Youth Program, started from pole position and won Friday’s qualifying but only finished 13th in Saturday’s sprint, so of course he was determined to come back today.

He started well and immediately started to pull away from the rest of the pack, but the entire top three also kept their position, i.е. Theo Purshen was second, Viktor Marten was third, who tried to put pressure on his compatriot by claiming second position. Both had something to fight for as they were unlucky on Saturday, and today it was all about getting as many points as possible. Looking ahead, let’s say only one of them succeeded.

Local hero, Australian Jack Duane, was also unlucky this weekend, so he also tried to get ahead and on the 5th lap he overtook Jehan Daruwala beautifully, but only in the battle for 11th position. However, this was also a good performance as he started from 15th position.

The first to pit was Juan Manuel Correa, but this visit to the pits was not planned, it was caused by a puncture.

On lap 9, while trying to overtake Jack Cruford, Duane was unable to avoid contact with the opposing car, and it all ended when the American flew off the track and crashed into a barrier. On the replay of the video it was clear that Jack was doing everything correctly and quite accurately, only his opponent in the top didn’t take his foot off the gas and it all ended in a retirement.

A safety car appeared, many immediately returned to the pit lane to change tyres, but here too there were some incidents, as their teams’ exiting the pits, Isaac Hadjar and Oliver Berman collided, causing the Briton to suffer a puncture. tire and he had to go through the circle back to the pit lane. Not only that: in the pits the mechanics were brought in with his car, so Berman returned to the track last.

After a spate of pit stops, the top five looked like this: Frederic Vesti led, followed by Roy Nissani, then Enzo Fittipaldi, Kush Maini and Ayumu Iwasa. And of these, only the Japanese visited the pits, whose chances of winning were still the most preferred.

When the fight resumed on track, it was revealed that the stewards saw no fouls in Jack Duane’s actions at the time of the collision with Crawford, and the Australian avoided a penalty, but was only 18th after his strange tactics team, as a result of which he visited the pits twice – apparently something went wrong with the first pit stop during the period when there was a safety car on the track.

After the restart on lap 14, events on the track developed very quickly: in the top ten several overtakes took place simultaneously and almost simultaneously; someone was more lucky, someone less so, but Iwasa moved up to third position. He overtook Fittipaldi, who had previously overtaken Nissan, and barely stayed on track, rolling back to 11th position. The Brazilian was also ahead of Theo Purscher, who was running 4th and already plotting an attack on Iwasu.

Meanwhile, Ayumu was already closing in on Maini, but was in no rush to overtake as the Indian still had to pit. Besides, just like Fittipaldi, who kept losing ground, Dennis Hauger, the winner of yesterday’s sprint, was ahead of him.

On the 21st lap, Iwasa still overtook Maini; Pursher also performed a similar maneuver and rose to 3rd position. At the same time, Vesti was still in the lead, having received instructions from the team to stay longer on track, taking into account the late appearance of the safety car, which would minimize the number of positions lost.

And Frederick was really waiting for such a moment: on the 26th lap, Roy Nissany flew off the track, a safety car immediately came out, and the leader’s red and white car immediately spun into the pit lane.

And then this happened: Enzo Fittipaldi, who had been in the pits, entered the track on cold tires and clearly rushed to accelerate, leading to a departure from the track. When the Brazilian got out of the way, he hit the guardrail with his left rear wheel and did not notice that he had damaged the suspension. As Enzo began to accelerate, the car spun out of control and crashed into the fender at almost full speed just after where the wrecked Nissan car had previously stopped.

The work of the Australian marshals increased, they were evacuating damaged equipment and the platoon drove behind the safety car. First place was taken by Ivasa, followed by Purscher, and Hauger, who incidentally started tenth, rounded out the top three.

With only three laps to go the safety car returned to the pits and a late restart was made. But the surprises continued: Hauger’s car was hooked by Marten, sending the Dane to the side of the road, so another permutation took place in the top five. Arthur Leclerc moved up to third, with Frederick Vesti ahead of Zane Maloney, taking advantage of the new tyres.

In the very last laps there were no surprises – there were enough already. Ayumu Iwasa crossed the finish line first with his second win of the season, Theo Purscher came second and Arthur Leclerc third, luck at last: for the younger brother of the Ferrari driver, this is the best result so far in 2023 . Charles, by the way, followed the race from the pit wall of the DAMS team and was one of the first to congratulate Arthur.

After the successful conclusion of the Australian weekend, Iwasa led the personal ranking of the series: he now has 58 points. Pursher is in second place, he has 8 points less, and Vesti moved up to third, losing another 8 points to the leader.

Results in progress…