F2: Sunday race won by Felipe Drugovic

The track in Zandvoort is of course not a ring road in Monaco, and in itself it is quite interesting and peculiar, but overtaking there is also bad. Even the Saturday sprints of the youth series confirmed this once again, and in fact bold and hot guys race in F3 and F2, but they preferred not to take any chances.

And those who took risks didn’t always win in duels with rivals – a few attempts to overtake the Formula 3 race in the morning ended in collisions, crashes off the track and the appearance of a safety car. The character of Sunday’s Formula 2 race, more than eventful, was also linked to the characteristics of Circuit Zandvoort.

Felipe Drugovic started from pole position, the leader of the individual classification, who won qualifying on Friday. He was well aware that the track is not conducive to a bright fight, so he secured the most favorable position in advance.

It seemed that Felipe started a little worse than Jack Duane, but still kept the lead. But Duane and Logan Sargent, who started second and third, had their own challenges as they compete for third in the championship, and it was important for each of them to make the race as good as possible.

And this came out: Jack locked the wheels in the first corner, Logan pushed him from behind trying to regain at least one position, but apparently he also didn’t react in the best way to the opponent’s braking and flew towards the side of the road. There he was able to regain control of the car, returned to the track, but by then everyone was already over.

Realizing that he missed the opportunity to earn points, he naturally got upset, rushed to overtake the pack, managed to overtake one of the outsiders, but then started to attack Ralf Boschung, who was at the end of the second ten. That’s when contact developed – the front wheel of Sargent’s Dallara grabbed the rear wheel of Swiss racer Campos’s car, after which Logan couldn’t do anything – he flew off the track in the 7th corner and crashed at full speed.

The rider appeared uninjured but was sent off the track to the medical center for examination, but the crash barriers were badly damaged and it took time to repair. The safety car stopped first, then the race was stopped by red flags and everyone returned to the pitlane.

But the very first laps many of his competitors were combative, as Theo Purscher, who started 16th, managed to regain a few positions, Clement Novalak climbed to 7th and Amaury Kordil moved from 12th to 9th.

The repair of the barriers took approximately 20 minutes as the stewards began to investigate a strange incident that occurred while a safety car was on the track. Either Roy Nissani, who was driving 15th, suddenly braked on the straight, or David Beckman, who was right behind him, didn’t calculate the speed, but in order not to crash into the Israeli car, he had to turn sharply to the right, but Marino Sato drove there.

It all ended with Beckman having to replace the broken front fender, and he rolled back to last position.

The restart was given behind the safety car. Drugovich calmly held the lead, but his teammate, Clement Novalak, had to repel Marcus Armstrong’s attack as he tried to take over the Frenchman’s 7th position. However, he literally fought back, as there was little contact between the machines.

Now Clement himself decided to attack Liam Lawson, who was riding in sixth, and almost stay ahead of the New Zealander, but he still held his position.

On lap 8, Jack Duane decided to take a gamble and tried to get ahead of the race leader, but locked the wheels badly and only ruined his tires.

Meanwhile the pit stops started, one of the first to go for new tires was Novalak, who returned to the track in 18th position. But of the rest of the top ten riders, only Yuri Vips made it to the pit stop – however, Duane was also forced to turn into the pits by the circle.

Soon Drugovich also went to the mandatory pit stop, who managed to keep his position in front of the Australian without any problems. But the interval between cars was minimal, despite the fact that Felipe was running on cold tires and Jack had already warmed them up. And then Richard Fershor, leaving the pits, intervened in their fight, whose car was just between the leader and Duane, who was chasing him.

The Australian’s attack was not so smothered, but he had to get ahead of another opponent – not Drugovich, but Fershor. However, we did not see a continuation of this curious situation, as on lap 18 the race was again neutralized by the appearance of the safety car. This time the problem was that at the pit stop on Marino Sato’s car the left front wheel was badly stuck, and in the second corner it just fell off and the Japanese crashed into the guardrail. The video display clearly showed that the Virtuosi team mechanic didn’t actually fix the wheel, although he raised his hand to indicate that everything was okay.

When the safety car left the track on lap 21, it was just under half the distance to the finish. Liam Lawson was in the lead, but was not yet in the pits, as were the five riders who followed.

When the restart was given, events on the track developed according to a very strange, if not absurd, scenario. Lawson was in no hurry to accelerate, which the rivals did not expect, and one of them managed to add gas, but the speed had to be reduced immediately. In this situation, not everyone was oriented correctly, and Richard Fershor collided with Jack Duane, who was in 8th place, causing the Australian’s car to make a U-turn.

As the intervals between the cars were minimal, this led to multiple incidents in the second half of the pack, with the result that Clement Novalak and Tatiana Calderon had to withdraw due to broken cars.

On lap 25, the race resumed and if Lawson stayed on track, several of the top five riders immediately turned into the pit lane. As a result, Theo Purscher moved up to 2nd position, followed by Frederik Vesti and Drugovic in 4th position. When Purscher entered the pits on the next lap, Felipe inherited third place.

Lawson went for new tires on lap 27 – by the way, it looks like he will have to appear before the stewards, who started an investigation into the incident at the restart. And when Vesti also went to the pit stop, Drugovich led the race.

But the Brazilian tried to pressure Fershor, albeit on a damaged car. Recall that it was he who knocked Jack Duane off the track and then made contact with a hole in the nose cone of the Dutchman’s car. However, the Zandvoort race is his home stage and he naturally wanted to distinguish himself from his compatriots.

However, Drugovich suspected the intentions of the opponent and added to get away from him at a more or less safe distance.

Due to several restarts and the consequences of numerous accidents, the race was delayed, so that the finish was not determined by the number of laps, but by the time. Felipe Drugovic was in the lead for almost two seconds, Fershor was in second, but Ayumu Iwasa was already overtaking him.

For other positions in the top ten, a rather fierce battle continued, but there were no serious attacks, but Purscher managed to stay ahead of Kalan Williams, but it was only a battle for 11th position. But in the end, the Frenchman made another successful attack: he overtook Jehan Daruwala beautifully and earned at least one point for 10th place.

The rest, who raced in the top ten, remained in place and soon Felipe Drugovic received congratulations on another well-deserved victory – already the fifth of the season. But Richard Fershhor, who finished second, was also happy to climb to the podium in the home race. Admittedly, it was he who knocked Jack Duane off the track and the stewards will investigate what happened at the restart after the finish.

Ayumu Iwasa rounded out the top three – for the Japanese this is the fifth podium in his debut season, which isn’t bad either. Dennis Hauger finished fourth, fifth – Enzo Fittipaldi.

It is worth noting that the race participants drove two laps less than originally expected, 38 instead of 40, as the time limit had been exhausted.

Race results