Hitech GP’s Paul Aron profited from a penalty for championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto to win the Formula 2 feature race in Qatar
Having failed to convert his three previous poles into wins this season, Aron finally made his fourth pole count at the Losail circuit, but only after Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto was penalised five seconds at the finish. Bortoleto dropped to third in the results behind his chief title rival Isack Hadjar, leaving just half a point between them heading to next weekend’s deciding round in Abu Dhabi.
Bortoleto made the better launch from the inside of the front row at the start to lead into turn one, while Aron held onto second despite being challenged by Dino Beganovic, Victor Martins and Richard Verschoor.
The gap between the front two was gradually extended to one second over the first seven laps before Aron headed for the pits for his mandatory tyre change. Several other drivers came in, including MP Motorsport’s Verschoor, who was released from his pitbox into the path of Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Contact left Verschoor with a puncture, while Antonelli rejoined the circuit before sliding into the gravel with steering damage.
That resulted in a virtual safety car period, which came at an untimely moment for Bortoleto who was heading into the pitlane on completion of the next lap. The Sauber Formula 1-bound driver made a late decision to swerve back onto track, which would soon incur him a five-second penaly.
Bortoleto pitted on the next lap after the safety car was deployed, and he rejoined ahead of Aron and Hadjar as the net leader in seventh. Ollie Bearman led at the restart ahead of five other drivers still to pit but the racing lasted less than one lap before the safety car was required again.
Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez was spun out by DAMS driver Jak Crawford, the latter also retiring shortly afterwards in the pitlane with suspension damage.
Bearman led the field again for the next restart but ran wide at the final corner and lost the lead to AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen before the race had resumed. Duerksen let Bearman back by on the next lap, but in doing so also lost a further couple of places.
Bortoleto maintained his advantage over Aron and Hadjar as the trio climbed up the order, and held a 1.4s lead once Bearman made his mandatory stop with two laps to go. With no chance of building a five-second gap to Aron to offset his penalty, he still pushed on the final lap to try and have enough of a margin to Hadjar, who had MP’s Oliver Goethe on his tail for third.
The gap at the chequered flag between the championship’s top two was 4.6s, resulting in Bortoleto slipping third, just ahead of Goethe, while Aron inherited his his first victory.
DAMS driver Dino Beganovic, making his debut this weekend, was fifth ahead of Trident’s Christian Mansell and Hitech’s Amaury Cordeel. VAR’s John Bennett, also competing in his first F2 event, came from a lap down to finish eighth ahead of Rodin Motorsport duo Zane Maloney and Ritomo Miyata.
AIX Racing’s debutant Cian Shields was 11th ahead of Bearman, while Max Esterson’s first F2 weekend ended with a 18th place finish for Trident, having been spun around by Martins who subsequently retired with suspension damage.
