Verschoor takes his seat at top of F2 standings with Red Bull Ring win

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor claimed the Formula 2 points lead by winning a thrilling feature race at the Red Bull Ring.

It was a controlled performance from the MP Motorsport drivers, who took the lead away from ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins early on.

Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli started on pole and led the field through the opening lap. One of the frontrunners retired at the end of that, with an engine issue forcing Prema’s Gabriele Mini to retire in the pits after running in fourth.

From seventh on the grid, Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne looked to make progress and passed Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti early on to move up to fifth. He decided to pit on lap eight of 40, as did Martins, Marti and DAMS’ Jak Crawford.

When Invicta Racing’s Roman Stanek pitted a lap later, Dunne jumped him. Fornaroli stayed out for another two laps, and rejoined behind Martins and Verschoor as the third highest of the drivers that  had pitted.

Verschoor gradually closed the gap to Martins, and took the lead on lap 15 with an impressive move around the outside of turn four.

Martins was unable to stick with Verschoor and slowly fell into the clutches of Dunne. Once he caught up, a forceful move down the inside of turn four put the pre-race points leader ahead.

At that point Verschoor had a two-second gap to Dunne, and while it was reduced late on once the pair had filtered to the front there was no challenge for the win. Verschoor now leads Dunne by six points at the season’s halfway point.

Further back, the battle for third place heated up towards the end of the race. Marti attempted a move on Martins into turn four, and while he did get past there was contact which led to a 10-second penalty and also allowed Fornaroli to get through.

Fornaroli took the final podium spot, and Marti was demoted to seventh just ahead of Martins.  Crawford, Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and Hitech GP’s Luke Browning were moved ahead of Marti. Crawford and Fornaroli are now third and fourth in the standings.

Montoya had contact during the race with Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett, but made the alternate strategy work and charged up the order late on with his fresher supersoft compound tyres. He was helped by Browning, Crawford and Martins being engaged in battle through to the very end of the race.

There were late yellow flags due to a crash at turn three. Campos’s Arvid Lindblad drove into the rear of fellow Red Bull junior Oliver Goethe, with the MP driver’s car then being sent airborne once it hit the sausage kerbs.

Race results (40 laps)