It was a difficult weekend in the F2 for Marcus Armstrong and Liam Lawson, the duo caught out once again by an untimely safety car and unfortunate incident’s in Sunday’s Feature Race. The round saw Brazilian Felipe Drugovich clinch the 2022 F2 Drivers Championship.
Both qualified well for the event, Lawson the second fastest and Armstrong third, only behind pole-sitter Jack Doohan, who has been in form of late to bring himself into contention for the empty F1 Alpine seat.
Sprint Race
The reverse top 10 grid for the sprint saw the Kiwi’s start in the midfield, a Lap 1 incident between Tatiana Calderon and Olli Caldwell bringing out the safety car. Drugovich was forced wide into the grass, suffering suspension damage from a bumpy grass verge and retiring from the race.
Armstrong had worked his way up to seventh from the start and gained another spot on the restart, whilst Lawson had dropped to 11th.
Championship second place-sitter Theo Pourchaire had a difficult sprint, starting down the order running wide into gravel in the mid-stages, dropping him to the rear of the field.
Lawson went on a late charge in the closing stages of the race, gaining several spots to improve to seventh, one place behind Armstrong.
It was Juri Vips, the teammate of Armstrong, who took the win, ahead of Frederik Vesti and Jehan Daruvala.
Pourchaire could only muster 17th, giving Drugovich the F2 title whilst parked up in pit lane.
Feature Race
Doohan started poorly off pole, gifting Lawson the lead through the Turn 1 chicane ahead of Armstrong for a Kiwi 1-2 on track.
Seperate multi-car incident’s over the first several corners brought about an early safety car, not before the newly-crowned champion Drugovich had managed a pass on Armstrong for second.
Ralph Boschung was forced to cut through the chicane at Turn 1 and rejoin at the exit of Turn 2, pinning Pourchaire in the middle of a three-car sandwich. Both cars spun off into the wall, only for Pourchaire to get hit by the cars of Luca Ghiotto and Caldwell coming up from behind.
Up the road, it was the pole-sitter Doohan caught out by a swerving Daruvala at the entry to the second chicane at Turn 4. The Australian was forced into the path of Logan Sargeant, both cars continuing straight with damage.
The safety car intervention couldn’t come soon enough, seven cars withdrawing before a lap had been completed.
The Lap 6 restart saw Armstrong reclaim second, returning the Kiwi 1-2 on the road.
It was only a lap later when Calan Williams found the wall at the exit of the the Ascari chicane, guided into the barriers by David Beckmann.
Unfortunately, by the time the safety car was called for, Lawson had passed pit entry whilst Armstrong dove in late.
The late dive saw the Kiwi lock up coming into the lane, but it was too little to prevent a pit lane speeding infringement, a 10 second time penalty the result.
The Kiwi had already passed the pit entry bollard come the intervention, further adding to the penalty.
The race was eventually red flagged as Williams’ car was unable to be safely removed, Lawson rejoining down in 10th.
Things went from bad to worse for the Red Bull reserve driver, Lap 13 contact with Vips resulting in a damaged front wing, Vips awarded a 10 second penalty for causing the contact.
Come race end, Lawson finished as the last of the runners remaining on track, in 14th, whilst Armstrong was one place ahead in 13th.
Daruvala went on to claim the race victory ahead of Vesti whilst Ayumu Iwasa rounded out the podium places.
The F2 now takes a break until November before the season-concluding event in Abu Dhabi.
