Photo: Top Speed
Single-seater newcomer Alp Aksoy Hasan won the Formula Trophy title in the final round at Yas Marina Circuit.
There were three pre-event test sessions on Friday, and Yas Heat Academy’s Adam Al Azhari was quickest by just 0.003 seconds over Xcel Motorsport’s Rowan Campbell-Pilling. Pinnacle Motorsport’s Niccolo Maccagnani was 0.087s behind in third, and Evans GP’s new driver Kasper Schormans was fourth.
Also joining the grid were Tommy Harfield (Xcel), Nina Gademan (Hitech GP) and Cole Hewetson (Xcel).
Qualifying took place on Saturday morning, and there were two sessions. In Q1, Campbell-Pilling was quickest by a tiny 0.062s over Mumbai Falcons’ Aksoy, with Maccagnani and Hitech’s Scott Lindblom both within 0.16s of pole.
Gademan was fifth, and title contenders Theo Palmer (Hitech) and David Cosma Cristofor (Xcel) qualified down in 12th and 15th.
Q2 was quicker, and on his final lap Aksoy snatched pole from Harfield by 0.147s. Harfield had been on top by 0.01s over Lindblom, with AGI Sport’s Nicholas Stati and points leader Maccagnani 0.031s and 0.039s behind him respectively.
Campbell-Pilling was 0.264s off pole in sixth, 0.004s ahead of Al Azhari. Hademan was eighth, Cosma Cristofor was 12th and Palmer was 16th in the 27-car field.
The straight between turns eight and nine was used for the pit straight and grid location for the races, and race one took place in hot conditions.
Campbell-Pilling swept across at the start and forced Aksoy off, but Aksoy was still able to squeeze ahead on the inside into the opening corner. The poleman reclaimed the lead with a great move into the chicane on lap two, then Aksoy tried going around Campbell-Pilling’s outside as lap three began but was unsuccessful. The gap between them gradually grew to 1.3s, then reduced slightly in the later laps.
Gademan and Lindblom demoted Maccagnani to fifth at the start, and Lindblom took third down the back straight as Maccagnani struck trouble and retired. That promoted Al Azhari to fifth, and he passed Gademan on lap three.
On laps 10 and 11, Lindblom weaved his way to the first corner as Al Azhari applied pressure. That allowed Gademan to stay on their tail, and Cosma Cristofor got involved too having passed Akcel GP’s Yuta Suzuki on lap six.
On the last lap Suzuki cut the chicane, passed four drivers and let them back past while Al Azhari almost got alongside Lindblom at the finish. Hunter Salvatore won his lengthy battle with team-mate Palmer for eighth.
The results compressed the title fight to four drivers, with Aksoy moving into a 11-point lead over Campbell-Pilling as Maccagnani and Cosma Cristor dropped to third and fourth.
Al Azhari stalled at the start of race two, and up front the leading five made it through the opening corner safely with Maccagnani taking fourth from Stati. At the end of the lap was a big crash, as Mumbai Falcons’ Payton Westcott plughed into Xcel’s Felipe Reijs with a divebomb move at the chicane.
The safety car was called on lap two just before the leaders reached the crashed cars, and Al Azhari had recovered to 16th by then.
Racing resumed on lap six, and Aksoy accelerated early to instantly build a gap. From there he faced no challenge, and won both the race and the title.
Stati squeezed past Maccagnani at the chicane on the restart lap, then Maccagnani got back past through the hotel section on lap seven. He was pressured into the chicane next time by, with the pair the fastest drivers on track.
Maccagnani locked up into the chicane on the penultimate lap, setting up a last-lap fight. He locked up again in the hotel section, ran wide exiting the turn five hairpin and Stati managed to go around the outside of him at the chicane. However Maccagnani had the better exit speed and was back alongside all the way to the finish. Stati took fourth by 0.008s.
Campbell-Pilling came home seventh, so lost second in the standings to Maccagnani, and is under investigation for an unsafe rejoin. Al Azhari won an intense battle for 10th with AGI’s Noah Killion and Cosma Cristofor.
Results round-up
Race 1 (14 laps)
1 Rowan Campbell-Pilling Xcel Motorsport 27m29.315s
2 Alp Aksoy Hasan Mumbai Falcons +1.081s
3 Scott Lindblom Hitech GP +8.177s
4 Adam Al Azhari Yas Heat Academy +8.373s
5 Nina Gademan Hitech GP +8.752s
6 David Cosma Cristofor Xcel Motorsport +10.142s
7 Yuta Suzuki Akcel GP +10.308s
8 Hunter Salvatore Evans GP +13.476s
9 Theo Palmer Hitech GP +14.084s
10 Payton Westcott Mumbai Falcons +16.177s
Pole: Campbell-Pilling, 1m56.972s
Fastest lap: Nicholas Stati, 1m56.512s
Race 2 (12 laps)
1 Aksoy 27m59.413s
2 Tommy Harfield X GP +1.638s
3 Lindblom +2.423s
4 Stati AGI Sport +4.188s
5 Niccolo Maccagnani Pinnacle Motorsport +4.196s
6 Kasper Schormans Evans GP +5.110s
7 Campbell-Pilling +6.548s
8 Salvatore +9.335s
9 Palmer +12.659s
10 Al Azhari +15.337s
P: Aksoy, 1m56.673s
FL: Stati, 1m58.012s
Championship standings
1 Aksoy 105 2 Maccagnani 76 3 Campbell-Pilling 75 4 Cosma Cristofor 61 5 Palmer 56 6 Al Azhari 53 7 Sasha Bondarev 50 8 Lindblom 46 9 Salvatore 44 10 Westcott 30