Dunne penalty hands victory to Camara in dramatic Baku F2 thriller

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Alex Dunne won his second Formula 2 feature race of the weekend on the road in Baku but a five-second penalty for cutting the line on the entry to the pit lane handed victory to Rafael Camara.

In a thrilling climax to the race, the three main title contenders were separated by less than 1.5s at the flag, as Dunne pushed to the limit to hold off Camara, while Nikola Tsolov closed in on both of them after charging through from his starting position of 11th.

With the top three in the championship on the podium, a third win of the season for Invicta Racing’s Camara enabled him to increase his lead over Tsolov by six points, as the Red Bull junior put in the fastest lap. A disappointed Dunne lost ground to both in the points after a race that had looked to be his for the taking.

Dunne’s Rodin Motorsport team-mate Martinius Stenshorne led away from pole position, with Dunne and Camara behind, the trio holding position after an early safety car, with Prema’s Noel Leon pushing Camara for third.

The race turned on the mandatory pit stops and the timing of two Virtual Safety Cars.

With Hitech’s Ritomo Miyata stopped by the side of the track, Rodin called Dunne in at the end of lap six, with the VSC being called when the Irishman was already in the pit lane, giving him some of the benefit of stopping under yellow. However, a frustrated Stenshorne and Camara both stayed out.

Stenshorne came in under green, the team anticipating another neutralisation with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak having pulled off, but though the VSC was called, the Norwegian had already exited the pits, rejoining just behind Dunne.

Camara was making good use of his supersoft tyres and a clear track such that when he stopped under green, he was able to rejoin in the effective race lead, although Dunne, with his tyres up to temperature, quickly regained the position into Turn 1.

Tsolov had pitted on the same lap as Camara and was soon up to spped and continuing to make progress up the field. He quickly moved past Trident’s Laurens van Hoepen into Turn 1, taking him to fifth, 5.7s down on Dunne.

Dunne wasn’t pulling away at the front with Camara, now with his tyres up to temperature, in and out of DRS range as the gap fluctuated around the one second mark.

However, once Dunne was informed of his penalty, he knew he had to try to build a gap, whilst Camara was content to keep the pink car in sight, although he admitted post-race that “even if I tried, I couldn’t overtake him. I think he was just better overall.”

Once Tsolov disposed of Stenshorne for third he began to haul in the leading pair, lapping up to 0.6s per lap faster.

With the championship at stake, Camara was getting the hurry up from his Invicta team, as Dunne, having pushed his tyres to the limit to build a gap was now struggling for grip and dropping the pair into Tsolov’s range.

Tsolov was pushing hard to close in as the laps ran out, even brushing the wall as he made a final effort. Onto the final lap, there were less than two seconds between them but Dunne held on to cross the line first, with Tsolov running out of time to attack Camara.

Stenshorne held on to fourth to round off a strong weekend for Rodin, with Van Hoepen a strong fifth and Mari Boya taking his best result of the season for Prema in sixth.

Race results (29 laps)

Fastest lap: Montoya, 1m55.494s

Championship standings
1 Camara 207 2 Tsolov 200 3 Dunne 189 4 Mini 163 5 Beganovic 137 6 Leon 133 7 Stenshorne 107 8 Duerksen 90 9 Maini 90 10 Van Hoepen 90