Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Jack Doohan rounded off a “roller-coaster” Formula 2 career with his third feature race victory of 2023 in the season finale at Yas Marina Circuit.
The Virtuosi Racing driver dominated Friday’s qualifying session, claiming pole with a 0.224-second margin over fellow Alpine junior Victor Martins. He was sixth in Saturday’s sprint race, before controlling the final race of the year on Sunday to beat DAMS’ Ayumu Iwasa to third in the standings by three points.
“For the most part, it was under control,” he said. “Looking back now, the strategy was the safest one, of option-prime. But typically it seems that the prime-option, the medium tyre to soft tyre, seemed quite a bit stronger.
“So it was crucial that we managed the tyre at the right point of the race to still have enough tyre at the end there to hold off the fast-charging Victor who was quite quick on the soft tyre. So once the gap wasn’t coming down so drastically, I knew I could keep that pace and hold on for the win.”
The Australian enjoyed a rocket start and by lap two already led by more than a second over Campos Racing’s Kush Maini — who had passed ART Grand Prix’s Martins for second place off the line.
“I think my reaction time was probably the best I’ve done in my career, and I was just hoping that it wasn’t less than 0.12 or whatever the limit is when they clarify it as a jumped start, because it was honestly really, really fine margins,” said Doohan.
“It was a great getaway, nice to have a clean run into turn one that I could do my own thing. I think Kush seemed to try to push for the first three or four laps, but I knew that didn’t seem sustainable at that point for me, so I was happy to be able to extend that [stint] for three or four more laps longer than the others.”
What he described over the course of the season as “fundamental issues” with his car did not allow Doohan to achieve his goal of becoming champion. However, he is pleased with the overall job done.
“It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster for sure,” he said. “This year coming in wanted to make it my title fight year, but just the first five rounds not really scoring any points made it a little bit difficult. I think round five after Monaco I was a good 79 points away from Theo [Pourchaire] and Fred [Vesti]. So to come back now, less than 40-point deficit, we’ve been the highest scorer by over 30 points [in the last five rounds]”
Doohan scored 96 points and won three feature wins in the last five rounds, with Pourchaire scoring 74 and Martins scoring 62 points in that time.
“When it’s been in our control we’ve done the most we could, but unfortunately we just lost too much. You’ve got to be happy with what you can do, and I’m just stoked to go out like this.”