Crawford secures F2 Feature Race win after tense battle in Baku

Written by Jasmin Low and Morgan Holiday

Credit: Formula 2

DAMS Lucas Oil's Jak Crawford took a narrow victory in the Formula 2 Feature Race over AIX Racing's Joshua Dürksen and Dino Beganovic.

The weekend so far

Jak Crawford topped the timesheets on Friday, claiming pole position with a time of 1:54.791. Championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli lined up alongside the American after missing out on the top spot by 0.019s, followed by PREMA Racing’s Gabriele Minì whose qualifying time was nearly four-tenths slower than the leading pair. 

Saturday’s Sprint Race offered a taste of what was to come on Sunday, as five cars did not see the chequered flag. Pole-sitter Rafael Villagómez was taken out of the race on Lap 1, whilst a host of racing incidents, spins, and engine failures forced Hitech’s Dino Beganovic to control multiple safety car restarts. By the end of the 21-lap spectacle, the Swede had stretched out a lead of over six-seconds to the chasing field, taking his maiden F2 victory ahead of Luke Browning and Alex Dunne.

As it Happened

Fornaroli had the better start from the inside line for the Feature Race, overtaking Crawford into Turn 1. The American polesitter's misfortune continued as Minì got past him going into the next corner, and Crawford dropped to third.

On Lap 2 Crawford was able to get second place back from Minì, as further down the field Martinius Stenshorne jumped from his eighth place starting place to fourth. Even further down the field, the Hitech TGR pair of Beganovic and Browning battled for eighth. Beganovic came out on top after a scrappy battle, his teammate relegated to ninth place for the moment.

On Lap 5, Stenshorne's charge came to an end as he found himself in the barrier after a scuff with Pepe Martí. His impact brought out the Safety Car, which was still out on Lap 6 when the window for pit stops opened up.

In the pandemonium of every driver coming through the pits, Fornaroli hit traffic and dropped to fourth coming out of pit lane. Minì gained the lead ahead of Crawford and Martí, Dunne getting fifth place behind Fornaroli.

The Safety Car came in afte Lap 7, and Minì led the restart with Crawford close behind. But the green flag didn't stay out for long, as Browning stopped on track and brought out a brief yellow before he was able to get going again and continue at the back of the field.

The battle for the lead continued out front, as Crawford regained the lead at the end of Lap 8 only for Minì to take it back a few corners later. Crawford took the lead back on Lap 10, this time managing to make the move on Minì stick as Dunne got past Fornaroli and the championship leader dropped down to fifth in this race.

In an effort to get fourth place back a few laps later, Fornaroli made contact with the back of Dunne's car. The pair were able to continue with Dunne still ahead, and Fornaroli picked up a 10 second penalty for the incident, the championship leader's day going from bad to worse. Carrying damage, Dunne dropped down to the back of the top 10.

On Lap 17, Joshua Dürksen muscled past Martí and gained third place, jumping up into the podium positions having made his way all the way up the order from a 14th place starting place. Two laps later he improved even further, getting past Minì to grab second place. With 10 laps still to go, his gap to Crawford was 1.8 seconds.

Carrying his penalty, Fornaroli buckled down in an attempt to minimise the damage, getting fourth and then third place in the span of a couple of laps.

Four laps from the end of the race, the yellow flags were back out briefly as Dunne locked up and went off the track before re-joining down in 18th, the end to his attempt at a recovery drive. He continued to struggle before pulling off to the side of the road and retiring from the race.

Up in front, Dürksen, carrying the fastest lap of the race so far, was within a second of Crawford and had the DRS advantage over the race leader. By Lap 27 Dürksen was right on Crawford's tail. But Crawford defended beautifully over the final two laps, pulling out a win by almost no margin over Dürksen and securing his Feature Race victory.

Fornaroli crossed the line in third place but as his penalty was applied he dropped to fifth, promoting Beganovic onto the podium and Minì to fourth place.

Martí finished in sixth place, and Arvid Lindblad, Rafael Villagomez, Richard Verschoor and Sebastian Montoya were the final points-scorers of the day.

Full results can be found here.