Formula 2: Vesti won the sprint and retained his chances for the title

Even before the start of Saturday’s sprint in Formula 2, some surprises started: Theo Pourcher broke the rules by holding a start rehearsal in the wrong place on the track and not when allowed by the rules, which got the stewards interested in his actions. And Paul Aron, a debutant in the youth series, was unable to move before the warm-up lap and took off from the pit lane.

The start was very turbulent: Frederic Vesti, who started the sprint from second place, immediately tried to get ahead of Enzo Fittipaldi, the pole holder – the two drivers fought desperately in the first corners, but the Brazilian retained the lead.

While they were enthusiastically trying to figure out who was the fastest, both were unexpectedly attacked by Richard Ferschor and almost took the lead, but Enzo still stayed ahead, but Isaac Hajjar broke through to second, while Vesti rolled back to fourth.

But on the very first lap, Juan Manuel Correa’s car spun deep into the pack, stopping in the middle of the track around Turn 3, and this of course caused the appearance of the safety car.

Until the battle on the track was neutralized, the leader of the personal classification, Theo Pourcher, managed to reach 9th place after starting from 14th position.

The safety car remained on the track for four laps, after which a restart followed. Incidentally, as these four laps were all completed at a slow pace, this somewhat facilitated the task of distributing tire life over the entire distance of the 23-lap race.

At the restart there were no changes, Fittipaldi was still in the lead, Hadjar was second, Ferskhor was third, but at the end of the lap Vesti launched a decisive attack on the Dutchman and regained a position. Everyone understood that Frederic had nothing to lose, he just needed a win to maintain his chances for the title, and the Dane clearly showed his desire to achieve the highest possible result.

Over the radio, the Prema team reminded Vesti that he also had to record the best lap of the race, and he immediately followed these instructions. But Fittipaldi disagreed and in the next round he blocked the Dane’s result.

Pourcher, meanwhile, continued to gain ground and overtook Kush Maini, moving up to 8th, and a lap later he moved up to 7th, forcing Ayumu Iwasa to make a mistake.

Since Pourcher had improved his position, which gave him at least a few points, Vesti had to reach the race leader, despite the fact that Fittipaldi was already a few seconds ahead. But at least by lap 10 Frederic had passed Hadjar into second place and his next target was Fittipaldi’s Red Bull car.

With more than half the distance behind him, Vesti, having regained the best lap of the race, chased down Fittipaldi and gradually regained the gap, but the Brazilian was still two seconds ahead.

On lap 13, Richard Ferschor passed Isaac Hajjar for third place, but was clearly slower than the leaders. By the 14th lap, Vesti had closed the gap to one and a half seconds and continued to overtake Fittipaldi.

The decision of the stewards on a 10-second penalty for Arthur Leclerc, the younger brother of the Ferrari driver, became known: his car stopped at the start, forcing him to start the race from the pit lane, and he did so in violation of the rules while the safety car was on the track. However, the Monegasque was still second to last, hardly causing an upset.

There were fewer and fewer laps to go before the finish and Vesti closed the gap with Fittipaldi to 0.6-0.7 seconds – this was already a foreshadowing of an imminent attack. It was clear that both were driving at the limit, especially as the tires were already quite worn and both riders started to lock their wheels when braking.

It seemed that Frederic braked clearly later than his opponent, and at these moments the interval between the cars was reduced to almost a minimum, but Enzo managed to take their corners more dynamically and Vesti once again fell behind.

However, on the 20th lap, Vesti still managed to stay ahead of the Brazilian at the 6th corner with a daring maneuver, which was facilitated by another brake lockup caused by Enzo – he had worn out quite a few tires and had them clearly damaged. And Vesti calmly took the lead and had increased the lead to almost two seconds by the next lap.

Ferschor, with worn tires at the end of the race, became a target for his rivals, and he was already being pressured with all his might by Hadjar, and the Frenchman was overtaken by Dennis Hauger, who was under pressure from Jack. Douin, who in turn defended himself against Theo Pourcher’s attacks.

But only Hauger managed to regain the position, and on the last lap and literally just before Vesti crossed the finish line with a lead of 3.8 seconds. In addition, he became the author of the best round, which is why he earned 11 points – this is the maximum harvest that could be collected on Saturday.

Returning to the pits, Frederic sang a loud song on the radio, and there was a reason for this mood: he had significantly narrowed the gap with Pourcher in the fight for the title, so the decisive battle for the championship was postponed until Sunday. .

Vesti won the sprint, Fittipaldi finished second and Ferskhor third. Pourcher was unable to stay ahead of Douin, giving him just two points for 7th place in Saturday’s short race. To win the title, Frederic must regain 16 points in the main race of the weekend.

He will start 9th, while Pourcher will start 14th, if he has not already been fined for today’s rule violation. Overall, the situation for Vesti is not easy, but not hopeless, and given how great he had today’s race, he will be in the most aggressive mood on Sunday. In general it will be interesting.

Sprint results