Formula 2: Jack Doohan wins first season

Ahead of Sunday’s Formula 2 race at the Hungaroring, the situation in the youth series individual standings escalated almost to the limit as Theo Purscher narrowed the gap to championship leader Frederik Vesti to one point.

At the same time, according to the results of Friday qualifying, the Dane started from 3rd position and next to him on the same second row of the grid was Purscher’s car.

Against this background, the fine Clement Novalak received yesterday for causing a collision with Ralph Boschung during the sprint did not attract much attention, but French driver Trident lost five grid positions and started the race from the penultimate row.

And the front rows of the grid looked very interesting, promising exciting duels on the Hungarian track: Jack Duane started from pole, Victor Marten from second position, both trained at the Alpine Academy. It has already been said about the second row, and the third row contained the cars of the fast debutant Isaac Hajar and the already quite experienced Ayumu Iwasa, who occupied the third row in the individual classification, and he also had something to fight for.

This is Duane’s fourth pole position in Formula 2 and of course the Australian was determined to make the most of his favorable position. He succeeded at the start, kept the lead and took off confidently, but Marten gave in to Vesti’s attack in the very first corners, who acted very aggressively and managed to take second position.

Running fourth, Purscher tried to get close to Marten’s car within attacking distance, but yellow flags soon appeared on the track due to Novalak’s departure – however, they only worked on a certain part of the circle and for a very short time.

Duane built up the advantage, by the fifth lap it was over 1.2 seconds, but Vesti added and soon had a chance to use the DRS system, but the attack was not yet reached. Jack, realizing that the situation was escalating, also accelerated and his lead once again exceeded a second.

Marten also held off the front runners for more than a second, Pursher lost a little more to him, but Theo was already putting Hajjar under pressure.

On lap 9, Zane Maloney pitted first for a mandatory pit stop, then a few riders followed, and all returned to the track in the bottom of the second ten.

Maloney tried to attack Crawford, who also pitted, at the end of the start and finish straight, but American driver Hitech defended very hard, dangerously squeezing his opponent out of the track twice, and the stewards became interested in his actions. But it was only a battle for 19th position.

Their duel continued on the next lap: Maloney took advantage of the fact that Crawford did not attack Roy Nissani and was ahead of the American, although there was close contact between their cars.

On lap 14, Purscher pitted, becoming the first of the group leaders, and returned to the track in 14th. Theo immediately tried to attack Amory Kordil, but he managed to fight back and hold the position. At the same time, Pursher had already begun to overtake Hajjar, who was 0.6 seconds behind his compatriot.

Pit stops continued, but Duane, Vesti, Marten and Iwasa were in no hurry to turn into the pit lane and continued to do laps with good results.

On lap 17, Purcher managed to get ahead of Kordil and climb into 11th position, and Hajjar went around the Belgian, although Amaury made him nervous in defence.

On lap 19, Enzo Fittipaldi, who was fifth, changed tires and returned to the track in twelfth, but Hauger, riding on well-heated tyres, unlike the Brazilian, immediately attacked and outpaced him. On the next lap, Ayumu Iwasa also pitted before rolling back to the end of the top ten. On the same lap, Purscher overtook Kusha Maini and moved up to 7th position.

The equator of the race was approaching and Duane, Vesti and Marten were still on the track, and it was only on the 23rd lap that the Prema team called Frederik to the pits, after which the leader of the personal classification was fourth, ie right in front of Purscher, and their principled confrontation continued.

On the next lap, Martin changed tires and got out ahead of Vesti, but immediately attacked the Frenchman and got ahead of him. Pursher then tried to do the same, but Victor defended hard and Theo couldn’t even manage to stay on court.

Returning along the side of the road, Khadzhar walked around him, and after another circle – and Iwasa! And instead of battling Vesti for the podium and championship leadership, Theo now had other problems to solve as he dropped back to 6th. At the same time, Frederick was running second.

On the 25th lap, Duane also pitted and returned to the track as leader, while at the same time his lead over Vesti was more than six seconds.

Ten laps from the finish, the top five looked like this: Jack was in front, and he recorded the fastest lap of the race at his own expense, Vesti was already over seven seconds behind him, Marten was four seconds behind, followed by Hajjar and Iwasa.

At the same time, the Japanese gradually narrowed the gap with Isaac, his colleague in the Red Bull youth program, and were clearly preparing for an attack. However, there were fewer and fewer laps left to the finish and Ayumu was still unable to continue into decisive action. But on the 35th of 37 laps he still managed to overtake and climb to 4th position. It was clear he wasn’t pretending to be on the podium as the first three had already come a long way from it.

Meanwhile, the race was over and Jack Doohan Virtuosi Racing took his first win of 2023 and became the tenth Formula 2 driver to reach the first step of the podium this season.

Frédéric Vesti finished second with 18 points remaining, extending his lead over Purscher, who today had to settle for sixth place. According to the result of the Hungarian stage, the Dane is in the lead with 153 points, while Theo has 11 less.

Joining Duane and Vesti on the podium was Victor Martin, who tried to overtake Frederick in the closing laps, but it was too late. However, it is unlikely that the Frenchman will upset ART very much, because according to the results of the Hungarian stage of the youth series, he climbed to the 4th row of the individual classification, ahead of Oliver Berman.

However, fourth-place finisher Ayumu Iwasa also had reason to be in a good mood as the Honda Racing protégé narrowed Purscher’s championship gap to ten points, theoretically beating him in a week’s time in Belgium. Of course, with good luck.

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