ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins took his first win of the season in the Formula 2 sprint race at Barcelona, while Juan Manuel Correa made a return to the podium
Rodin Motorsport’s Ritomo Miyata finished second on the road behind Martins, but a 10-second penalty for track limits penalties demoted him to eighth. Invicta Racing’s Kush Maini inherited second ahead of Correa, the DAMS driver scoring his best result since returning to F2 following his career-halting crash at Spa-Francorchamps in 2019.
Maini lined-up from pole in the partially-reversed grid contest but slipped to fourth at the start, with Martins taking the lead from the inside of the front row and Miyata sweeping around the outside of Correa into second. After resisting an opening-lap challenge from his team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto, Maini grabbed third from Correa and the start of lap two, with Bortoleto following him through into fourth three corners later. Championship leader Paul Aron climbed to sixth at the start, and then tried to challenge Correa for fifth but couldn’t find a way by.
Martins initially came under pressure from Miyata, but he then edged away and maintained a one-second gap for the first half of the race. The Alpine junior then further extended his advantage by a further a second and he cruised home in the remaining laps. Miyata’s challenge fell apart after being handed two separate five-second penalties for exceeding track limits, which were served as he took the chequered flag.
Maini came home four seconds behind Martins to claim second, while Correa prevailed in late four-way battle to take third. Bortoleto headed that scrap until the penultimate lap, where his resistance was finally broken after locking up and running wide at turn five. Correa dived up in the inside into turn 10, and Bortoleto also lost out to Aron and Correa’s team-mate Jak Crawford before the finish.
Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar scrapped over eighth for several laps, with Hadjar finally overtaking the Mercedes-AMG junior at the halfway stage and he then inherited seventh at the chequered flag due to Miyata’s penalty. MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger also passed Antonelli to finish 10th. Rodin’s Zane Maloney was another to receive a track limits penalty and finished 19th. Prema’s Ollie Bearman struggled for pace early on and came home 21st.
Featured image credit: Formula Motorsport Ltd
