Prema’s Frederik Vesti won a thrilling Formula 2 sprint race at Yas Marina to take the title battle to Sunday’s season finale
Vesti recovered from fourth following an early safety car period to pass Rodin Carlin’s Enzo Fittipaldi late on and score his sixth victory of the year. By also scoring an extra point for fastest lap, the Mercedes junior will start the deciding feature 16 points behind chief rival Theo Pourchaire, who salvaged two points by climbing from 14th to seventh.
Lining up from second on the grid, Vesti made a great start to draw alongside polesitter Fittipaldi but eventually lost out to the Brazilian in a dice that lasted until turn three. He then made a late lunge into turn five, with Fittipaldi running wide and slipping to second.
A three-wide lead squabble followed, with Vesti finding himself sandwiched between Fittipaldi and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Richard Verschoor on the run to turn six.
Fittpaldi prevailed to reclaim first place, and remained in front following a further challenge from fellow Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar, who climbed two places to second ahead of Verschoor, while Vesti was demoted to fourth.
A spin for Verschoor’s team-mate Juan Manuel Correa brought out the safety car at the end of lap one, with racing resuming five laps later.
Verschoor and Vesti almost made contact as they contested third, with the latter coming out on top. Vesti then quickly caught Hadjar before sweeping around the outside of the Hitech GP driver for second on lap 10. By this stage, Fittipaldi was more than two-seconds clear, but Vesti halved that gap by lap 16, then using his DRS on the following lap to draw closer.
The pair remained in position until four laps remaining, with Vesti pouncing on a lock-up from Fittipaldi at turn five to slipstream up to his rival and dive up the inside into turn six. Vesti then pulled away to win by 3.9s, with Verschoor finishing third after passing Hadjar at the halfway stage.
Hadjar slipped to fifth on the final lap behind MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger, with feature race polesitter Jack Doohan and ART GP’s Pourchaire coming home close behind.
Pourchaire, who will again start from 14th in Sunday’s deciding contest, climbed five places to ninth before the safety car period, and then passed Kush Maini and Ayumu Iwasa, the latter making a mistake under pressure from the Frenchman.
Iwasa was the final points-scorer in eighth, with Carlin’s Zane Maloney ninth and Prema’s Ollie Bearman climbing from 17th to 10th.
ART’s Victor Martins, who starts from second in the finale, suffered early front-wing damage and trailed home 20th, one place ahead of Arthur Leclerc who stalled at the start. F2 debutant Paul Aron finished 16th for Trident, despite initially stalling at the start of the formation lap.
Featured image credit: Prema Team
