Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto boosted his title hopes with a last-to-first triumph in the Formula 2 feature race at Monza while his title rivals failed to score
Starting from the back of the grid after a qualifying spin, the Brazilian benefitted from a mid-race safety car period to jump ahead of all the leading runners. He eventually came home almost 10 seconds clear of Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney who had led the early stages of the race from pole.
Bortoleto’s main title rivals Isack Hadjar and Paul Aron were involved in a first-corner melee at the start which resulted in the latter retiring.
Aron initially challenged Maloney on the run to the first chicane, but he was then rear-ended and spun out by Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti, who had. rocketed from seventh to squeeze up the inside of his slow-starting team-mate Hadjar.
The incident resulted in several cars taking to the escape road, and allowed Prema duo Ollie Bearman and Andrea Kimi Antonelli into second and third and AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen to climb from 11th to fourth.
Duerksen initially lost out to Hadjar following a brief safety car period, but he swiftly fought back before sweeping past Antonelli and then challenged Bearman for second.
Bearman soon pitted, and the rest of the leading runners came in one lap later. The still-to-stop Bortoleto was promoted to first, but the safety car was almost immediately deployed after MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger was taken out of the race at the first corner by Rodin’s Ritomo Miyata.
Bortoleto dived into the pits before the safety car had picked up the field and he rejoined in fourth and, crucially, with the net lead. He then moved up the order to first following the restart, taking first away from his team-mate Kush Maini, who eventually came in for his mandatory stop – at the second chicane.
Maloney eventually finished second while Richard Verschoor – another to benefit from the safety car period to move into contention after his pitstop – finishing third.Antonelli was fourth ahead of Duerken and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins, while Bearman lost out in feisty battles with both Martins and Antonelli and was shuffled back to seventh.
Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez was eighth ahead of DAMS’ Jak Crawford, with Villagomez’s team-mate just taking the final point in 10th ahead of Hadjar, who had slipped well down the order due to a slow pitstop. Despite missing out on the points, Hadjar retains the lead of the championship, though his lead over Bortoleto has been slashed to 10.5 points.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
