Finlay McSporran
Published: 16:37, 22nd June 2024

The Alpine junior took a comfortable sprint race victory while Prema continued to struggle.

Race Report

Starting from second, Martins would get a good launch of the line, allowing him to easily take the lead into turn one. The same however, could not be said for pole-man Maini, who suffered wheelspin off the line which saw him drop down to 4th, while Miyata swept round the outside of turn one to take second.

Maini was quick to recover the places that he’d lost, going down the inside of Correa on lap 2 to take 3rd. Ahead of him Miyata was struggling to keep the car within track limits, earning himself a 5 second time penalty in the process. This soon became 10 seconds as he struggled to stay ahead of Maini, having lost DRS to Martins on lap 10.

Further behind, Prema’s struggle’s continued into Saturday as both Bearman and Antionelli struggling to get to grips with their car, with Bearman coming on the radio to say “It’s hard not to do track limits when I can’t **** turn”! This was all but confirmed as both cars fell down the order, with Bearman falling from 15th to 21st and Antionelli from 6th to 10th. This leaves Prema as the only team in F2 not to score a podium this season, and with this being round 6/14, time is running out for their star drivers to mount a serious title challenge.

Out in front, Victor Martins kept his cool to take a commanding first victory of the season, with Maini coming home in second place. Miyata’s penalty saw him drop down to 8th, promoting Correa to 3rd, his first podium since his return to F2 following his horrific crash at Spa in 2019.

Race Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Victor Martins	ART Grand Prix	39m47.280s
2	Kush Maini	Virtuosi Racing	+4.411s
3	Juan Manuel Correa	DAMS	+7.968s
4	Paul Aron	Hitech GP	+8.625s
5	Jak Crawford	DAMS	+9.096s
6	Gabriel Bortoleto	Virtuosi Racing	+10.742s
7	Isack Hadjar	Campos Racing	+11.612s
8	Ritomo Miyata	Rodin Motorsport	+12.641s
9	Dennis Hauger	MP Motorsport	+17.834s
10	Andrea Kimi Antonelli	Prema	+24.995s
11	Franco Colapinto	MP Motorsport	+25.554s
12	Zak O’Sullivan	ART Grand Prix	+25.925s
13	Joshua Duerksen	AIX Racing	+26.814s
14	Pepe Marti	Campos Racing	+27.433s
15	Rafael Villagomez	Van Amersfoort Racing	+28.049s
16	Richard Verschoor	Trident	+29.362s
17	Amaury Cordeel	Hitech GP	+29.819s
18	Enzo Fittipaldi	Van Amersfoort Racing	+31.765s
19	Zane Maloney	Rodin Motorsport	+36.445s
20	Taylor Barnard	AIX Racing	+38.349s
21	Ollie Bearman	Prema	+41.456s
22	Roman Stanek	Trident	+41.518s
Fastest lap: Miyata, 1m30.617sChampionship standings 1 Aron 87   2 Hadjar 80   3 Maloney 69   4 Hauger 56   5 Bortoleto 53   6 Antonelli 48   7 O’Sullivan 40   8 Maini 42   9 Colapinto 38   10 Crawford 36

Next up- The action continues tomorrow with the F3 and F2 feature races getting underway before the F1 Spanish grand prix.

Tags:

Formula 2

Road to F1

Spanish Grand Prix

Edit:

Juan Manuel Correa has received a post-race time penalty for track limit violations, demoting him to 8th and promoting Paul Aron to 3rd.