Crawford resists Duerksen to win Baku F2 feature race

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Jak Crawford resisted a Joshua Duerksen charge to win the Baku Formula 2 feature race to close up in the championship.

Points leader Leonardo Fornaroli lost a podium to a penalty after a rare mistake running into the rear of Alex Dunne, who failed to score along with Luke Browning.

Fornaroli took the lead from polesitter Crawford on the inside of the first corner of the race, and Gabriele Mini followed him through into second before Turn 2, although Crawford would repass Mini down the pit straight at the end of the lap.

Behind, Martinius Stenshorne passed both Alex Dunne and Pepe Marti to climb to fourth, but his impressive debut F2 weekend would come to an early end when he slid into the Turn 1 barrier after Marti took a look back up his inside at the start of lap five.

That brought out the safety car and with the field being led through the pitlane anyway, everybody stopped to change tyres – both the majority who started on the supersoft tyre and the three drivers further down the order who begun on softs.

The heavy traffic meant Fornaroli was held in his box and had to wait for Invicta Racing team-mate Roman Stanek to open a gap for him to rejoin, falling to fourth while Mini was able to jump to the lead in front of Crawford and Marti.

Mini went wide in the final corner on the lap after the restart, allowing Crawford by, only to then slipstream back in front down the pit straight. Crawford sealed the lead for good a lap later.

Behind, Dunne demoted Fornaroli to fifth, and four laps later they would make contact when Fornaroli simply ran into the back of the McLaren junior under braking, pushing him into the run-off area and down to ninth.

Duerksen, who had started 15th, took advantage to slip past Fornaroli, who would receive a 10-second penalty for the contact with Dunne.

AIX Racing driver went on to pass Marti and Mini, breezing past the latter down the pit straight with 10 laps to go once he had fallen out of Crawford’s DRS.

Crawford began having to defend from Duerksen with three laps still to run, but drove excellently on those laps to enter the pit straight each time with sufficient enough gap to remain ahead, even with Duerksen in his DRS. Just 0.216s separated them at the chequered flag as Crawford secured his third feature race win of the season.

Fornaroli followed Duerksen past Marti and Mini into third on the road, and Marti’s pace fell off so much – eliminating a sizeable advantage he had to Campos team-mate Arvid Lindblad – that Fornaroli would still finish ahead of him in fifth even after his penalty. It means he still has a lead of 19 points over Crawford in the championship.

Sprint race winner Dino Beganovic inherited the final podium place in third. The Hitech driver had a quiet start to the race from ninth on the grid but came on strong late on, also making quick work of Marti and Mini, who would finish fourth for his best feature race result of the season.

Dunne’s recovery would be thwarted up behind Lindblad, and with five laps to go he locked up and went deep up the escape road at Turn 15. Having rejoined towards the rear of the field he did the same a lap later, and this time to retire. He is now 58 points adrift of Fornaroli with two rounds remaining.

Browning too failed to make inroads into Fornaroli’s lead after a very slow start from fifth on the grid. Running close behind team-mate Beganovic, he was one of those who lost the most having to double stack in the pits, and he then went off at Turn 4 at the restart after suspected contact with Stanek. After pitting once more he would finish a lap down in 19th.

Another championship contender Richard Verschoor completed a muted weekend with ninth behind Rafael Villagomez and ahead of Sebastian Montoya.

Race results (29 laps)