Aston Martin development driver Jak Crawford scored his third career Formula 2 victory in Saturday’s sprint race at Imola.
Having been 10th quickest in qualifying, the DAMS racer had been provisionally due to start the partially-reversed-grid contest from pole until a penalty for his team-mate Kush Maini promoted him to ninth in the qualifying classification – therefore putting him second on the grid.
Pole went the way of ART Grand Prix’s Ritomo Miyata, but Crawford made the better start to immediately claim the lead. Miyata eventually slipped out of DRS range and came under pressure from Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad, who had made up two places to third.
Lindblad took second away from Miyata approaching the halfway stage, with Crawford having built a 2.1-second lead. The gap was slightly extended over the next couple of laps before Lindblad started to close back in. The Red Bull junior brought the deficit down to just over one second on the penultimate lap – not enough to be with DRS range – but Crawford controlled the final tour to secure his first triumph of the season by 1.1s
Miyata continued to fade in the race’s second half, losing further places to Hitech GP’s Luke Browning, his ART team-mate Victor Martins and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne. Having made up ground from eighth, Martins applied pressure on fellow Williams Academy member Browning while also having to fend off McLaren junior Dunne in the closing stages. Browning remained ahead at the finish to take the final podium spot.
Miyata came home over 7s further adrift in sixth, and just ahead of Virtuosi pair Leonardo Fornaroli and Roman Stanek. The latter profited from a mistake from Hitech’s Dino Beganovic and then fought his way past AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen to move into the points in eighth, where he finished despite a late battle with his team-mate.
Prema’s Sebastian Montoya – who was second fastest in qualifying – slipped back four places to 13th early on and missed out on scoring points despite fighting his way to ninth by the chequered flag.
MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe tumbled from third on the grid to 10th, while Duerksen held off Beganovic for 11th. Beganovic will line up from the front in Sunday’s feature race after sealing his maiden pole in qualifying.
Goethe’s team-mate Richard Verschoor retained the championship lead despite starting from a lowly 19th and eventually retiring. His closest rival prior to the weekend, Campos’s Pepe Marti, was involved in early contact with Prema’s Gabriele Mini and came home 14th, slipping to third in the standings behind Fornaroli.
Trident’s Sami Meguetounif was the final finisher in 21st after stalling at the start.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
