Formula 2: Pole won by Felipe Drugovic

Before qualifying at Zandvoort, Felipe Drugovic, who leads the Formula 2 drivers’ standings by a good margin of points, said a solid advantage will allow him to spend the rest of the races calmer and more cautiously.

When the session started on Friday, however, it didn’t look like he was saving the car, being careful or keeping an eye on his rivals: the Brazilian MP Motorsport driver immediately went hard and became the first to lead the qualifying protocol with a more or less more less good result.

However, Jack Doohan improved it almost immediately, but only by a tenth, after completing a circle in 1:21.760. And this time was the best for a long time, but only because about 10 minutes after the start of the session, Theo Purscher crashed the car in the 3rd corner of the track – this is one of the two banks of the Dutch track.

From the outside, it was not clear what caused the accident – it is possible that the car was blown off the path by a sharp gust of wind, which many complained about. Whatever the explanation for the accident, the ART team’s Dallara was badly damaged, work had to be done to repair the damaged fences and the races were interrupted by red flags.

But Theo Purscher now had to start from a fairly distant position in both races of the weekend, effectively robbing him of his already illusory title chances. Before the start of the Dutch stage of the youth series, the Frenchman was already 43 points behind Drugovich. Sure, he managed to set 4th in the first qualifying attempt, but you could expect the rivals to push him somewhere in the second ten.

When the protective barriers were restored, the battle on the track resumed.

First Ayumu Iwasa and then Logan Sargent improved Drugovic’s time and he moved up to 4th place. On the contrary, Duane made another bid for pole, after finishing the next lap almost three tenths faster than his own previous result.

With ten minutes to go until the end of qualifying, the riders took decisive action and tried to take the Australian’s intermediate post. Iwasa was the first to succeed, but Sargent immediately overtook him, but Drugovic moved to the front line after completing a lap with an impressive time of 1:20.713. In general, it was clear that his words about a more relaxed way of doing business in the remaining three phases of the season were no more than imagery.

Granted, Jack Duane wouldn’t give up and managed to at least get back to the second line of the session’s protocol – before the races were once again stopped by red flags due to Jehan Daruwala’s reversal. It was less than four minutes before the end of qualifying.

In this situation, Drugovic chose not to go to the track anymore – he had no new tires left, but most of the rivals were in the same situation, so he had nothing to fear. He was right: no one managed to improve his result, so Felipe was soon to be congratulated on his fourth pole this season.