Jak Crawford fought back from a slow start to claim his sixth Formula 2 victory in Sunday’s feature race in Baku
The DAMS driver moved to within 19 points of championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli, who was hampered by a penalty, while AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen stormed from 15th on the grid to second.
Crawford lined up from pole, but he was beaten off the line by fellow front-row starter Fornaroli, and he then lost a further place to Prema’s Gabriel Mini into turn two.
The American soon reclaimed second from Mini, while Fornaroli pulled out a 2.5-second lead, but the safety car was required on lap five after Trident’s Martinius Stenshorne crashed out.
Stenshorne had initially impressed on his feature race debut by climbing from seventh to fourth ahead of Pepe Marti, but he then slid into the wall at turn one when the Campos driver tried to reclaim the position.
By this stage Duerksen had made progress to ninth, and he gained another three places in the pitlane as most of the field took the opportunity to make their mandatory stops during the safety car period.
Mini was another big winner, as he exited the pitlane with the lead ahead of Crawford and Marti, while Fornaroli was shuffled back to fourth.
Having remained ahead at the restart, Mini made a slight error further around the lap, allowing Crawford to sweep by. The Italian was soon back in front by completing a move into turn one, but Crawford reclaimed the lead one lap later and soon pulled out of DRS range.
Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne snatched fourth from Fornaroli, but he then tumbled to ninth after being rear-ended by the Invicta Racing into turn one.
Duerksen profited from the clash to move into fourth, and he continued to make progress by passing Marti and Mini during the next few laps. He continued his charge by eradicating the deficit to Crawford, who defended the lead over the final three laps and held on for victory by 0.2s.
Mini and Marti both lost further places to Fornaroli and Hitech GP’s Beganovic. Fornaroli took the chequered flag in third, but a 10s penalty for his clash with Dunne relegated him to fifth. That allowed Saturday’s sprint race winner Beganovic to claim his second podium of the weekend, with Mini classified fourth and Marti sixth.
Marti’s teammate Arvid Lindblad came home seventh ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez, while MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor lost ground in the title race with ninth ahead of Prema’s Sebastian Montoya.
Having sat second in standings coming into the weekend, Hitech’s Luke Browning was another to suffer a blow to his championship hopes. He went off the road at turn four shortly after the safety car restart and finished a lap down in 19th after being forced to pit again for a new front wing.
Dunne went off the road in the closing stages and slipped further down the order before retiring, and Kush Maini was another who failed to see the chequered flag.
Featured image credit: Formula 2 on X
