Virtuosi’s Jack Doohan held on to score a maiden FIA Formula 2 win in a wet sprint race at Silverstone
The Alpine Formula 1 academy driver was pushed hard late on by DAMS’s Ayuma Iwasa, who almost eradicated a four-second deficit in the final two laps to finish 0.9s behind.
The race was started behind the safety car, with all drivers fitting wet tyres, and the green flag was waved after two formation laps.
Prema’s Jehan Daruvala led away from pole and pulled out an early one-second lead over Charouz’s Enzo Fittipaldi. But with the track slowly drying, Daruvala started to struggle with overheating tyres, and he was caught and passed by Fittipaldi at Club corner.
Doohan, who had taken third from Hitech GP’s Juri Vips into Brooklands on the previous tour, then repeated the same move on Daruvala to climb to second. The Australian then moved into the lead and pulled out a 4s advantage, as Iwasa picked off Daruvala and Fittipaldi to rise to second.
The gap remained the same until the penultimate lap, when Iwasa halved it to 2s, and then set the fastest lap on the final tour but had to settle for second behind Doohan.
ART’s Theo Pourchaire passed the struggling Daruvala in the second half of the race, and closed to within a second of Fittipaldi, who held on to third to claim his second podium of the season. Championship leader Felipe Drugovich was involved in a battle in the first half of the race with ART’s Frederick Vesti, and the MP Motorsport finally prevailed before making a late overtake on Daruvala to finish fifth.
Daruvala eventually came home eighth, as Vesti and Carlin’s Logan Sargeant made late overtakes to come home sixth and seventh. Hitech’s Marcus Amstrong finished ninth ahead of Trident’s Richard Verschoor, while Vips slipped back to 12th with overheating tyres by the flag behind MP Motorsport’s Jake Hughes.
Carlin’s Liam Lawson damaged his front wing during the race and ended up 20th. Prema’s Dennis Hauger was another to run into tyre trouble and slipped from 10th to 15th.
Virtuosi’s Marino Sato was the only retirement after pulling off the circuit with an issue in the second half of the race. Ralph Boschung was due to start from 17th for Campos, but withdrew before the race following a recurrence of the neck issues that have plagued his season.
Featured image credit: @formula2 official twitter
