Home Featured Gabriel Bortoleto wins eventful FRAC race two at Yas Marina

Gabriel Bortoleto wins eventful FRAC race two at Yas Marina

by Roger Gascoigne

Photo: FRAC

Gabriel Bortoleto led from start to finish to score his maiden category victory in an incident-filled second Formula Regional Asian Championship race at Yas Marina Circuit.

A late safety car period set up a final lap shootout with under one minute on the clock, but Bortoleto controlled the restart without drama, taking the flag 0.974 seconds ahead of his 3Y Technology by R-ace GP team-mate Lorenzo Fluxa.

Isack Hadjar was the only driver who looked capable of attempting to pass Bortoleto, having rapidly got to second from seventh on the grid. However, the Red Bull junior retired in the pits during the second safety car period with two laps remaining, promoting Fluxa.

Mumbai Falcons’ Arthur Leclerc and Sebastian Montoya finished third and fourth after strong drives. Leclerc had a look at Fluxa into turn nine on the last lap but could not find a way past and had to settle for third.

Leonardo Fornaroli started third but dropped back, then several retirements helped him climb back to fifth, one place ahead of R-ace’s Oliver Goethe who started 24th after an early retirement in race one but took advantage of Joshua Dufek and Jak Crawford running wide to jump the pair on the final lap. Goethe was penalised 10s post-race, dropping him to 14th.

One third of the race ran behind the safety car, the first interruption from an incident involving Gabriele Mini (Hitech GP), Dino Beganovic (Mumbai Falcons) and Montoya at turn nine and resulted in Mini and Beganovic retiring.

R-ace’s Hadrien David had been making rapid progress up from 22nd. An attempted pass on Paul Aron at turn six enabled Cem Bolukbasi and Pepe Marti to close onto him, David ran wide on the exit of turn nine and as he rejoined into turn 10 the three made contact.

The resulting damage put Bolukbasi and Marti out immediately, with David retiring in the pits.

Race results (15 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Gabriel Bortoleto 3Y by R-ace GP 31m06.633s
2 Lorenzo Fluxa 3Y by R-ace GP +0.974s
3 Arthur Leclerc Mumbai Falcons +1.833s
4 Sebastian Montoya Mumbai Falcons +2.150s
5 Leonardo Fornaroli Hitech GP +3.418s
6 Joshua Dufek Hitech GP +5.953s
7 Jak Crawford Abu Dhabi Racing by Premaa +6.333s
8 Frederick Lubin Evans GP +6.883s
9 Levente Revesz Evans GP Academy +7.324s
10 Amna Al Qubaisi Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema +7.786s
11 Ayato Iwasaka Pinnacle Motorsport +8.178s
12 Brice Morabito BlackArts Racing +9.052s
13 Thomas Luedi BlackArts Racing +10.046s
14 Oliver Goethe 3Y by R-ace GP +4.503s
15 Paul Aron Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema +19.023s
16 Isack Hadjar Hitech GP +2 laps
17 David Morales Evans GP Academy +3 laps
Ret Hadrien David 3Y by R-ace GP
Ret Cem Bolukbasi Evans GP
Ret Pepe Marti Pinnacle Motorsport
Ret Hamda Al Qubaisi Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema
Ret Dino Beganovic Mumbai Falcons
Ret Gabriele Mini Hitech GP
Ret Nicola Marinangeli Evans GP
Ret Khaled Al Qubaisi Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema
Ret Salih Yoluc Pinnacle Motorsport
DNS Dilano van’t Hoff Pinnacle Motorsport
Fastest lap: Hadjar, 1m52.275s

Championship standings
1 Montoya 37   2 Leclerc 30   3 Bortoleto 26   4 Fluxa 26   5 Mini 18   6 Fornaroli 14   7 Hadjar 12  8 Beganovic 10   9 Dufek 10   10 Lubin 10