Marti wins crash-filled F2 sprint race at Red Bull Ring

Photo: Red Bull

Pepe Marti claimed his second win of the Formula 2 season at the Red Bull Ring in a crash-filled sprint race.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett made a poor getaway from reversed-grid pole and was quickly passed by fellow front row starter and AIX Racing driver Joshua Duerksen.

The pair were still in the top two places when the race was stopped on lap four. Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad had been looking to get past Hitech GP’s Luke Browning, and at turn turn three Trident’s Sami Meguetounif got involved too by lunging down Lindblad’s inside.

As Lindblad turned in, Meguetounif made contact and his car rolled over and then onto Browning’s while upside down. Red flags waved and the trio walked away from the incident unscathed, with the clear-up taking 40 minutes.

When the race restarted there was another incident at turn three, with Hitech’s Dino Beganovic being spun around by MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe, and this triggered a safety car period.

Once racing resumed, Duerksen built a gap but then had that reduced by Marti. The Campos driver had started fifth, and on lap 18 he made his move. He picked the inside line for turn three and took the lead, but Duerksen fought back and reclaimed first place with a spectacular move down the inside of the next corner.

Marti repeated his overtake a lap later, and this time Duerksen could not come back at him. After initially managing a gap of around a second, Marti began to pull away as Duerksen’s focus switched to Roman Stanek behind.

The Invicta Racing driver kept the pressure up to the chequered flag, finishing 0.264 seconds.

Rodin Motorsport’s Amaury Cordeel was on course for a season-best finish of fourth place until the final lap when he spun exiting turn three. MP’s Richard Verschoor avoided him, but then Gabriele Mini drove into his parked car.

Behind Mini, Invicta’s Leonardo Fornaroli was trying to make a move on the inside of Bennett but carried too much speed and almost drove into the rear of the Prema driver on entry. Once he got his car back under control to turn in, Fornaroli then drove into Mini on the exit, with Bennett going into the back of him.

Prema’s Sebastian Montoya jumped from ninth to fifth as a result, and it also put title contenders Alex Dunne (Rodin) and Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) into the points. Dunne now leads Verschoor by one point in the championship.

Race results (28 laps)