Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne took a dominant first Formula 2 win in the Bahrain feature race.
Dunne cycled into the lead early on and stayed out a lap later than the other frontrunners. He was able to get out of the pits just ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins, and quickly got his tyres working to pull away for a dominant victory.
Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli started from pole. Despite a strong getaway he quickly came under pressure from Dunne, but it took until lap seven for the McLaren junior to make an overtake happen.
Like most of the drivers at the front of the field, both started the race on the quicker soft compound tyres, and the highest-placed driver to start on the harder compound was Luke Browning. The Hitech GP driver started third, but had slipped back to 10th by the time Dunne passed Fornaroli.
Browning’s battle for the first part of the race was with fell hard-shod driver Joshua Duerksen. Browning found a way past the AIX Racing man for ninth, and was gifted more of an advantage when a problem with the right-rear tyre cost Duerksen time during his pitstop.
A relatively early stop for Martins had enabled him to jump Fornaroli, and almost get ahead of Dunne too but he later paid the price for having a longer second stint while the soft-shod Browning rocketed up to fourth.
It did not take Browning to utilise his tyre advantage to overtake Fornaroli and then Martins. He was running second by lap 23 of 32, and despite his quicker pace the gap that already existed to Dunne looked too large to make up before race-end. He had to settle for second, 8.244 seconds behind the winner.
Fornaroli took third from Martins, then came under pressure from Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti late on. The pair ran side-by-side on the penultimate lap and almost made contact, but Fornaroli held onto the position and took the points lead.
Martins finished fifth, holding off MP Motorsport’s pre-race points leader Richard Verschoor and Hitech’s Dino Beganovic.
Campos’s Arvid Lindblad was eighth, ahead of Prema’s Gabriele Mini and Duerksen, who won a tight four-car battle for the final point.
Race results (32 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Dunne | Rodin Motorsport | 59m40.123s |
| 2 | Luke Browning | Hitech GP | +8.244s |
| 3 | Leonardo Fornaroli | Invicta Racing | +19.433s |
| 4 | Pepe Marti | Campos Racing | +19.867s |
| 5 | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | +23.119s |
| 6 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | +23.573s |
| 7 | Dino Beganovic | Hitech GP | +24.137s |
| 8 | Arvid Lindblad | Campos Racing | +26.725s |
| 9 | Gabriele Mini | Prema | +34.945s |
| 10 | Joshua Duerksen | AIX Racing | +37.860s |
| 11 | Oliver Goethe | MP Motorsport | +41.095s |
| 12 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | +43.201s |
| 13 | Amaury Cordeel | Rodin Motorsport | +44.469s |
| 14 | Ritomo Miyata | ART Grand Prix | +46.571s |
| 15 | Sami Meguetounif | Trident | +47.403s |
| 16 | Jak Crawford | DAMS | +47.705s |
| 17 | Roman Stanek | Invicta Racing | +48.633s |
| 18 | Kush Maini | DAMS | +52.956s |
| 19 | Sebastian Montoya | Prema | +55.667s |
| 20 | John Bennett | Van Amersfoort Racing | +55.991s |
| 21 | Max Esterson | Trident | +58.288s |
| 22 | Cian Shields | AIX Racing | +1m09.975s |
| Fastest lap: Browning, 1m48.726s
Championship standings |
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