Following yesterday’s qualifying, two Formula 2 drivers were handed penalties, which affected the order in which the cars lined up on the grid for Saturday’s sprint.
First, Zane Maloney received two separate penalties for two different offenses against the same property. During qualifying he first interfered with Theo Purscher and then Jack Duane. In both cases he was deprived of three starting places, so that he started from 10th place today.
Dennis Hauger was also fined, but for a different kind of misconduct: the Norwegian MP Motorsport racer failed to brake under yellow flags, for which he lost five positions at the start of the sprint and dropped back to 19th position.
The start in Formula 2 was given behind the safety car. Although the rain seemed to have stopped, there was quite a bit of water on the track. In addition, the youth series riders were not working on wet tires at all this weekend, so it made sense to give them a chance to run at a leisurely pace for a few laps to adapt to such conditions.
Interestingly, as the peloton moved behind Bernd Maylander’s red Mercedes-AMG, one of the riders almost immediately headed to the pits for the next set of rain tires – it was Richard Vershoor. But he only occupied 22nd position, so he had nothing to lose.
In the end they gave a restart, Frederic Vesti, who started the race from pole, calmly kept the lead, but already on the first lap Ayumu Iwasa slowed down and immediately lost a lot of positions, rolling back to the end of the pack, and then going into the pits .
Oliver Berman managed to get ahead of Jack Duane in a flashy maneuver and climb into 5th position before also overtaking Enzo Fittipaldi.
On the video replay it became clear why I lost speed: right in front of him, the car of an inexperienced American, Brad Benavidez, overturned, and the Japanese hooked him and spoke very emotionally about this on the radio.
Benavidez pulled over to the side of the road, bringing the safety car back onto the track. Before the restart, Vesti led the pack, followed by Isaac Hajjar, then Theo Purscher, Berman and Fittipaldi.
On the 4th lap, the battle on the track resumed, and Vesti again acted quite skillfully, not letting any of the rivals go. Immediately after the restart, Berman continued to break to the front, beating Pursher and moving into 3rd position.
There was still quite a lot of water on the track and some pretty serious visibility issues as the cars spewed up a very dense plume.
However, this did not stop Berman from demonstrating excellent piloting skills on the home track to the delight of British fans: the 18-year-old Prema racer was ahead of Hajar and already running second, even showing the best lap time. Vesti was concerned, so the Dane decided to take the fastest lap and rewrite it.
On a wet track it was worth being careful, but some riders were more confident and continued to overtake, Clement Novalak was ahead of Roman Stanek, his Trident teammate. But it was only a dispute for 15th position.
But Jack Duane tried to attack Fittipaldi in the battle for 5th place, and he didn’t do it right away, but still managed to overtake the Brazilian. Enzo also tried to get ahead of Virtuosi Racing driver Victor Marten, but Fittipaldi managed to fight back.
On lap 10, Arthur Leclerc overtook Zane Maloney, and he succeeded, after which the Ferrari driver’s younger brother moved up to 9th position.
Berman appeared to be overdoing it to overtake the leader, his car flipped and although he stayed on track and continued the race, he missed several rivals and had to break back to the front from 4th position.
On lap 12, Purscher launched an attack on Hajjar, getting into the lead and moving into 2nd place, but by then the advantage of Vesti, the championship leader, was already around 8 seconds.
On lap 13 Duane attacked Berman again but the Briton defended quite hard resulting in Jack going off track and Oliver holding on to 4th position. The Aussie cursed over the radio when he returned and immediately resumed his attacks. The race stewards drew attention to this incident, but no penalties followed.
Meanwhile, Berman overtook Hadjar and on the 15th lap went around the Frenchman and Duane attacked him. Their very interesting duel lasted many turns and in the next round Jack finally brought the matter to an end.
On lap 17, Berman made a mistake, allowing Duane to overtake him, and it was clear that the battle for the podium would become fundamental in the closing laps.
Jack immediately resumed his attacks, but Berman defended himself so desperately that Duane was furious on the radio, insisting that Oliver was constantly pushing him off the track. And then, in the next corner, Berman couldn’t keep the car on track and Duane took the lead, though not without light contact.
Frederik Vesti started the final round more than 10 seconds ahead of Theo Purscher, which meant that both would strengthen their position in the individual standings – the Dane would remain the leader and Theo would be able to increase the lead over Ayumu Iwasa, who has no points today scored.
Jack Doohan crossed the finish line in third and the podium was a worthy reward for all the effort he put in as he attacked Berman. Oliver’s departure also cost him dearly: firstly, he rolled back to 6th position, allowing Fittipaldi and Hadjar to go ahead, and secondly, the stewards suspected the British of an unsafe return to the track, and their decision will be made later become famous.
And Vesti, who was unlucky yesterday, was able to take full advantage of the start from pole position to take his fourth win this season. One of the first to congratulate him was the Mercedes team, because Frederik is one of the drivers of their youth program. Her comment was short and sweet: “Fred. News. Remember this name.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
