Formula 2: Ayumu Iwasa takes his first win

In the weekend’s feature race at Le Castellet, Logan Sargent started from pole position, winning Friday’s qualifying and finishing second in the individual standings.

He managed to maintain that position, because, as was to be expected, the results of Saturday’s sprint were revised. Theo Purscher, who finished third on the track, was penalized for being too aggressive in Turn 11 against Marcus Armstrong. Five penalty seconds were added to French rider ART’s result, after which he moved up to seventh place.

True, Armstrong was also punished for a similar offense he committed in a duel with Jehan Daruwala. This didn’t stop Indian driver Prema from finishing second, but Armstrong fell back to a distant 14th place. In addition, Yuri Vips was also penalized for incorrect fighting techniques with… Armstrong, his partner in Hitech GP, and moved to the 11th line of the protocol, raising Sargent from 10th to 8th place and getting extra points, for those probably not counted. Looking ahead, let’s just say this is where his luck ended.

The start of the race was delayed by 10 minutes for some reason and when the race finally started Sargent was unable to maintain the lead. The American allowed excessive slippage of the drive wheels, but Ayumu Iwasa, the Japanese DAMS rider, had a great start from second position and looked like he was taking the lead straight away. However, Jack Duane, a Virtuosi Racing driver, did even better and broke through from 4th to 1st place in the opening seconds!

But Iwas clearly didn’t like this, so after a few corners he was ahead of the Australian, and without using DRS, which wasn’t working at the time.

True, the events have not yet developed further, because an accident occurred in the depths of the pack – at the exit of the 12th turn, the cars of Marcus Armstrong and Dennis Hauger collided, after which the New Zealander withdrew out of the race. The safety car came onto the road.

Hauger still managed to make it to the pits, the team promptly checked the condition of the car, thought it was possible to continue the race, changed the nose fairing and Norwegian driver Prema returned to the track. Obviously he was in last position and his lag from the leader was over a minute.

On lap five, the safety car returned to the pits and the fight resumed.

At the restart, Iwasa held the lead, Duane followed, followed by Sargent. Liam Lawson managed to get ahead of Felipe Drugovich and reach 7th position. At the end of the lap, Jehan Daruvala overtook Roy Nissany and moved up to 10th place.

For starters, Ayumu Iwasa had to break away from his pursuers to prevent them from using DRS, and the Japanese DAMS rider succeeded quite quickly: after a few laps, his lead over Duane grew to almost a second and a half. Sargent lost about the same amount to the Australian, but Logan himself was almost closely followed by Frederick Vesti. In turn, the Dane was overtaken by Purscher.

Around lap 10, the first mandatory pit stops started, but for now the tires were changed by drivers outside the top ten, and all contenders for points remained on the track. But already on lap 11, Theo Purscher entered the pits, clearly counting on a good result in his home race – the Frenchman returned to the track in 12th.

But Roberto Meri dropped out: the Spaniard drove into the pits and switched off the engine. Campos mechanics surrounded his car, but it soon became clear that continuing the race was impossible.

On lap 12 Logan Sargent also went for new tires but unfortunately his car’s engine failed! It appears this was due to some sudden outage as the American never returned to the track. As the Carlin team later explained, the clutch failed on his Dallara.

The pit stops continued. Duane changed the tires without any problems and literally drove right in front of Purscher, but he had already warmed up the tires so he easily beat the Australian and pushed him to 9th position.

On the next lap, the leader also entered the pits and everything went smoothly for Iwasa as well. In addition, he lost practically nothing, returned to the fight in 4th position and in front of him were only drivers who had not yet made it to the pit stop.

Meanwhile, Purscher and Duane Vesti led the way, after which the Dane dropped to 7th place.

On lap 19, Jehan Daruwala was one of the last to enter the pits, so Iwasa took the lead again. On the same lap, at Turn 8, Duane attacked Purscher along the internal trajectory, but miscalculated. At the last moment he realized he would not be able to slow down normally and, dodging a collision with an opponent, he turned left, his car jumped on the curb, lost stability and skidded.

Purscher stayed on track, though he lost a few seconds to Iwasa, and Vesti moved up to third, ahead of Duane. The Australian also continued to fight, but finished 4th. The stewards investigated this episode and quickly came to the conclusion that there was nothing to punish Jack for, which still allowed him to earn a lot of points.

On lap 23 Daruwala moved up to 8th position ahead of Richard Fershhor and was already putting pressure on Nissan. On the next round he made a decisive attack, overtaking Roy and his next target was Lawson, who had yet to be overtaken.

There were still five laps to go to the finish, Iwasa remained in the lead with a more than convincing lead of more than six seconds, Purscher was second, Vesti was third, and also a respectable distance.

But for fourth place, the battle unfolded between Duane and Felipe Drugovic, the championship leader, who solved a very specific task: it was important for the Brazilian to consistently earn points, given his solid lead in the individual standings. On lap 27 he calmly overtook Duane, especially as Jack’s car tires were already quite worn.

Literally on the last lap a surprise happened: right on the start-finish line Vershor’s car stopped and the Dutchman lost the chance to earn points. Yellow flags appeared, but this situation could no longer influence the main result of the race.

Ayumu Iwasa, a Honda protege and member of the Red Bull Youth Program, crossed the line first with his first Formula 2 win. He had a few podium finishes before, but now he’s really enjoying success.

The second place, to the delight of the French fans, was taken by Theo Purscher, and no one will take this result from him, as there is no doubt that he acted correctly today, and no fines threaten him. Earning 18 points against the backdrop of Sargent’s retirement enabled him to rise again to the second line of the personal standings.

Immediately after the finish, a moving episode took place in its own way: together with the French ART technicians, Theo performed acapello de Marseillaise, which once again emphasized how important this result was for him and his team.

Frederic Vesti finished third and only finished on the podium for the second time this season. And the fourth checkered flag saw Felipe Drugovich, of course, the remaining leader of the individual standings. By the way, it was he who recorded the best lap of the race and received a bonus point for that.

That suits the Brazilian best, as his lead over Purscher is still 39 points, and all indications are that this picture will not change much after the Hungarian stage of the championship, which will be held at the Hungaroring a week later.

Race results