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Leonardo Fornaroli defends his F2 championship lead after winning the Hungarian Feature Race at the Hungaroring. It is his third win this season but his first Sunday win ahead of his team mate, Roman Stanek who is awarded a back-to-back podium. After a long battle, Jak Crawford had to settle for third place, but moves up to second in the championship behind the winner.
The race was delayed until 10:02 local time as rain started to fall, causing the race was start behind the safety car. As the cars rolled back to the start/finish straight, the two Invicta Racing drivers got a very good start and immediately created a gap from the rest of the group.
A few drivers remained on the alternative strategy of medium tyres like Victor Martins as he’d dropped three places within the first two laps, struggling to find a dry line and get heat into the tyres, compared to the soft tyre which would have benefited early on with the damp conditions.
The first yellow flag came out at Lap 5 as Ritomo Miyata clipped Dino Beganovic at Turn 1, but quickly got the car back on the road to join the back of the pack. By the time the front of the field got to take Lap 6, Cordeel was seen to have white smoke billowing out of his car and was forced to stop at the side of the track, triggering a virtual safety car.
Goethe, Dürksen and Lindblad immediately broke into a battle for fifth place once the green flag was waved, with Lindblad succeeding in a double overtake, whilst Gabriele Mini did the same with Richard Verschoor and Pepe Martí as Mini took the inside line whilst the others were battling for ninth.
Victor Martins’ race went from bad to worse as he’d dropped to 17th on the timesheets on Lap 10 and crawled to a stop just out of Turn 12. He was unable to drive off to the side of the road, controversially triggering another virtual safety car instead of a full safety car.
The second restart provided a brilliant opportunity for Alex Dunne as he performed a double overtake on Dürksen and Goethe for sixth place.
This is where Fornaroli was investigated for a safety car infringement, which received no further investigation, but then another for speeding in the pit lane. Stanek’s pit stop benefited his on-track position massively by Lap 15, however it was Fornaroli’s pit stop a lap later that set him ahead of his team mate in a perfectly calculated overcut.
Frustratingly for the Italian driver on Lap 18, a decision was made to give Fornaroli a 5-second penalty for the pit lane infringement.
Dürksen, Goethe, Browning, Mini, Villagómez all pitted on Lap 15 to switch from soft to medium tyres and Stanek, Crawford, Meguetounif and Montoya a lap later. Crawford was gaining great pace to get to the Invicta Racing squad but a slow stop made his fight just that much harder.
Bennett would then be the third retiree of the race after rolling into the pit lane. He’d received damage from Villagómez and Mini which damaged his rear lower wishbone.
By Lap 20, Arvid Lindblad and Martí led the race in first and second without performing a pit stop but explained over the radio how the medium tyres still felt stable. 33.7 seconds separated him from Stanek.
Lindblad eventually came in for soft tyres on Lap 24 and slotted himself behind Browning, as well as Martí a lap later but these tyres proved to be difficult to warm as both Red Bull Academy drivers dropped quickly to 10th and 14th before being able to gain further places.
Even with his penalty, Fornaroli continued to create a gap to his team mate however Stanek’s problems lay behind him with Crawford who continued to gain time on the Czech driver. By Lap 28, Fornaroli had made up 5 seconds between him and his team mate before taking the lead from Miyata, who was still yet to pit.
Tyre warming problems continued for other drivers like Beganovic, but favoured his strategy a lap later as he made a move around Turn 1 on Dunne for ninth and Goethe for eighth. His next opponent would then be Lindblad who experienced the same issues with tyre warming. The Swede with slightly newer tyres tried to make his final move on the start/finish straight but had to settle for 7 points once the checkered flag was waved.
Miyata finally pitted at the end of Lap 35 to re-join in 18th position and Fornaroli had his sufficient 8-second lead ahead of his team mate to help achieve the team’s first 1-2 finish in four years. The teamwork from both drivers made an excellent race in terms of team strategy and both go into the summer break with a big reward of championship points.
Formula 2 takes a break but will return in Monza on the 5th of September for the Italian Grand Prix to see whether Crawford can close the 17-point gap to the Invicta Racing rookie in the final five rounds of the season, or whether any of the other chasing drivers can do the same.
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