Dino Beganovic Wins His First F2 Race
Last week out in Monza, Invicta driver Joshua Dürksen did the double with Invicta closing on the constructors championship to Campos after a 1-2 finish in the feature race. His teammate Rafael Câmara closed down to championship leader Nikola Tsolov. But who would come out on top at the new Madring circuit?
Sprint Race
With Fittapaldi on pole and Miyata starting alongside him in the front row, we saw the lights go out for the reverse race with a race down to the first chicane with Miyata taking the lead from Fittipaldi with an incident seeing trident driver John Bennett being spun round. As this happened there was a move from Alex Dunne on Bilinski with Villagómez going round but the three of them managed to keep going. After this Kush Maini hit Nico Varrone leading to a safety car coming out. After all the Lap 1 chaos, we went away again with Miyata maintaining his lead with a battle on Lap 9 seeing trident driver van Hoepen making a move on Noel León for the final step of the podium with Noel León having to give the position to van Hoepen after León went wide. But who would finish on the podium?
A few laps later on Lap 13, The Campos drivers of championship leader Nikola Tsolov and Noel León had a battle for 4th place which continued for the next lap. This ended up with Nikola Tsolov spinning round at turn 20 leading to the end of his race. After taking the lead on Lap 1, Miyata won the race from AIX driver Fittipaldi getting his first ever podium in FIA F2 and van Hoepen rounding off the podium.
Feature Race
With Alex Dunne starting P2 and Dino Beganovic starting from pole both of them were able to maintain their positions with Rafael Câmara under pressure from Stenshorne behind but able to keep his position. On Lap 2, a safety car came out after Kush Maini ended up in the wall after being pushed by Cian Shields. On Lap 6, we got going again with drivers van Hoepen, Boya, Villagómez and Varrone all coming into the pits. Would this work out for them?
On Lap 12, John Bennett attempted to go round on Noel León around La monumental with John Bennett going wide at the next chicane. For the next few laps, many drivers including Câmara and Tsolov pitted. However, this didn't end up well with them originally with Spanish driver Boya ending up ahead of both of them. During the next few laps, a battle between Tsolov, Câmara , Goethe and Boya with Câmara going round his championship rival Tsolov with the next lap him attempting to make a move but pushing Goethe into the wall leading to another safety car and Câmara receiving a 10 second time penalty.
The battle between Câmara, Boya and Tsolov resumed on Lap 24 with Câmara and Tsolov going through on Boya with Câmara now P9 and Tsolov P10. Out ahead on Lap 28, Dürksen made a move on Fittipaldi making him now P4. Unfortunately, Nikola Tsolov started losing position with contact between Noel León and Boya, however both managed to stay on track.
After an entertaining feature race, Dino Beganovic got his first feature race win with Dunne and Miyata finishing the podium for the first feature race in Madrid. The championship gap out ahead was now only 7 points between Tsolov and Câmara so who will be leading next time out in Baku?
Article Written by Catherine Rammelt
