Hitech GP’s Dino Beganovic scored a maiden victory in Saturday’s Formula 2 sprint race around the streets of Baku.
Beganovic finished 6.2 seconds clear of his teammate Luke Browning, who boosted his title hopes by grabbing second in the closing stages, with Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne completing the podium.
DAMS’ Jack Crawford topped Friday’s incident-filled qualifying ahead of championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli to secure pole for Sunday’s feature race Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez was 12th quickest, but penalties for Victor Martins and Roman Stanek promoted him to 10th and reversed-grid pole for the sprint race.
Martins and Stanek were both penalised for causing red flags in qualifying – the latter having crashed into Villagomez’s teammate John Bennett as he rejoined the circuit from an escape road.
Beganovic immediately snatched the lead from the outside of the front row when the sprint race got underway, with Prema’s Sebastian Montoya climbing from fourth to second.
Having made a slow start from reversed-grid pole, Villagomez retired at turn one in a three-car collision with Trident’s debutant Martinius Stenshorne and Red Bull junior Pepe Marti.
Stenshorne continued in third while Marti crawled back to the pitlane with damage and went no further. Red Bull’s other two academy members also hit trouble on the first lap, with Oliver Goethe and Arvid Lindblad both spun around in separate incidents at turn two – with Goethe out on the spot as a result.
Beganovic continued to lead following a resulting safety car period, but it wasn’t long until the race was neutralised once more, as Stenshorne slowed from third with a mechanical issue and stopped on the circuit.
Light rain started to fall when racing resumed once more, and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne immediately wrestled third away from Hitech’s title contender Luke Browning – the battle allowing Beganovic and Montoya to pull clear.
A mistake from Dunne a couple of laps later allowed Browning to reclaim third, and the McLaren junior soon lost a further place to Prema’s Gabriele Mini.
While Beganovic pulled out and an unassailable lead, Montoya was placed under investigation by officials for a potential safety car infringement, and his race got worse when he slowed with an issue shortly after being passed for second by Browning.
Dunne battled his way back past Mini to finish third, with the latter fading to seventh in the closing stages. Crawford climbed from 10th to fourth ahead of Fornaroli and MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor.
ART GP’s Victor Martis survived to brush with the wall to claim the final point in eighth ahead of Joshua Duerksen, while Lindblad recovered from his lap one skirmish to 10th.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
