Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad profited from a penalty for Richard Verschoor to become the youngest-ever Formula 2 race-winner in Saturday’s sprint race in Jeddah
17-year-old Lindblad took victory ahead of his Campos Racing team-mate Pepe Marti and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne, while a five-second penalty dropped on-the-road winner Richard Verschoor to fourth.
The top-10 positions from qualifying were reversed in forming the grid. Having been ninth quickest in that session, MP Motorsport’s Verschoor profited from a three-place penalty for Invicta Racing’s Roman Stanek to line up on pole, and he made good use of it to lead away at the start.
Prema’s Gabriele Mini lost second to Marti, and the Alpine junior was forced to defend from Marti’s fast-starting team-mate Lindblad before the first lap was completed.
An opening-corner crash for AIX Racing’s Cian Shields caused the race to run under virtual safety car conditions on lap two, with the track returning to green on the next tour. Lindblad soon took third away from Mini, who then used his DRS fight back only to run off the road at turn one and slip to fourth.
Marti, meanwhile, snatched the lead from Verschoor at the same corner, but the latter repeated the same move next-time-by to reclaim the advantage. Marti lost time after being squeezed wide during the battle, something that would prove significant later in the race.
Lindblad moved up to second ahead of Marti on lap eight. Marti ran wide further around the lap and lost a further place to Mini, but then used his DRS to reclaim third at the start of the next lap, with Mini holding off Stanek for fourth despite missing the first chicane.
Mini tactically backed off and let Stanek through before the final corner to get DRS, which he used to draw back alongside at the start of lap 10, but Dunne swept past the pair of them into fourth.
Stanek remained ahead of Mini, and the pair continued their squabble before the latter was attacked into turn one by DAMS’ Jack Crawford, who spun into retirement after locking up and making contact with the Italian driver.
That resulted in the safety car being deployed, and with the field diverted through the pitlane while Crawford’s car was recovered, all-but one driver used the opportunity to pit for super-soft compound tyres.
The order at the front remained the same, with Verschoor leading at the restart on lap 17 before edging over 1s clear of Lindblad. As the race approached its conclusion, Verschoor was handed a five-second penalty by officials, who deemed he had forced Marti off the road earlier in the race.
Unable to build enough of a gap to offset his penalty, Verschoor was shuffled to fourth at the finish behind Lindblad, Marti and Dunne. Stanek just missed out on pipping Verschoor to fourth, with Mini prevailing in a late battle with Invicta’s Leonardo Fornali to finish sixth.
Williams Academy duo Victor Martins and Luke Browning ran close together for most of the race, and it was ART’s Martins who edged Hitech GP’s Browning to the final point in eighth. DAMS’ Kush Maini finished 10th, and his team-mate Crawford will start from pole in Sunday’s feature race.
Featured image credit: Red Bull content pool
