Lindblad became the youngest winner in the history of F2
After the fine that the stewards issued to Roman Stanek, Richard Fershor moved to the pole of the short Saturday race, and, of course, the experienced MP Motorsport driver was determined to take full advantage of this.
Of course, the rivals who started next to him had the same attitude, because Gabriele Mini, who competed for Prema, started the race from the front row, and Pepe Marti, the driver of Campos, the winner of the Bahrain sprint, was in third position.
Fershor made a great start, retaining the first position, while Marty was already ahead of Mini in the first seconds, came out in second place and rushed in pursuit of the leader.
But already on the second lap, yellow flags appeared on the track - this was due to an incident that occurred at the start at the very tail of the peloton, which caused Cian Shields' wrecked car to stop in turn 1. A virtual safety car mode was introduced so that the marshals could safely remove the brown and green Dallara of the AIX Racing team from the track.
On lap 3, they gave a restart, and Arvid Lindblad managed to get ahead of the Mini. The Italian tried to counterattack, but the Red Bull youth program rider did not give up his position. By the way, Marty, Lindblad's teammate, also acted very aggressively and even got ahead of Fershor, but he didn't lead for long, because on the next lap Richard regained his position and almost immediately lost his pursuer by almost a second.
Nevertheless, Marty was still within seconds, and this gave him the opportunity to use the DRS system, which works very efficiently on the Jeddah expressway. Fershor was not satisfied with this, he increased and by the sixth lap brought the advantage to almost one and a half seconds, simultaneously recording the best lap of this stage of the race.
As he moved further away from the peloton, his rivals had no choice but to sort things out with each other, and Lindblad soon passed Marty, rising to 2nd position.
Mini attacked Stanek in turn 1, but he acted very aggressively and pushed him off the track. But already on the next lap, Alex Dunn, the McLaren youth program driver, was ahead of both of them. He's already got one win this season, and it looks like he's driving with more confidence.
The first half of the short race was behind us, and the top five looked like this: Fershor was confidently in the lead, followed by Lindblad, Marty, Dunn and Meaney. Although the stewards noticed Gabriele's maneuvers, it is possible that he will be punished for his overly harsh actions. However, on lap 12, Stanek passed him and took away the 5th position from the Prema rider.
On the next lap, Gabriele tried to counterattack Stanek, but now Roman showed intransigence, and the Mini was off the track in turn 1. That is, they are now kind of even, but it's still a question of how the stewards will look at the situation.
On lap 15, Jack Crawford, the winner of yesterday's qualifying, overtook Leonardo Fornaroli and moved up to 7th position. And then the events unfolded like this: the American DAMS racer decided to attack the Mini on the next lap. He did not give in, but Jack acted decisively, tried to get ahead of the Prema rider in turn 1, but there was contact between the cars.
Crawford spun around, his Dallara stopped in the middle of the highway with a dead engine. The safety car pulled out, and several riders decided to take advantage of the situation and change the tires, although this was not necessary in Saturday's sprint.
The restart was given on lap 17, Fershor held the lead, the drivers immediately behind him also retained their positions, but Fornaroli was ahead of Mini, and Victor Martin, who had been keeping in the shadows all race, went into action and also tried to attack Gabriele, but he fought back.
Just one lap later, Richard Fershor brought the lead to one and a half seconds, but then it became known that the stewards had fined him for pushing his opponent off the track at the restart. And although the Dutchman finished first, 5 penalty seconds were added to his result, so the victory was awarded to Arvid Lindblad.
Thus, the 17-year-old Briton became the youngest race winner in the history of Formula 2! Pepe Marti, his team-mate, took second place, and Alex Dunn took the third step of the podium. Fershor dropped to 4th position due to the penalty.
At the end of the sprint, Leo Fornaroli, who earned a couple of points for 7th place today, lost the lead in the individual standings to Pepe Marti, Alex Dunn rose to second place, and Fornaroli is now third. But the difference between today's 4th-place penalty taker Fershor and the leader is only 4 points, so the picture may change tomorrow.
Sprint results
Pilot
Team
Difference
1. A.Lindblad
Campos Racing
38:16.059
2. X.Marty
Campos Racing
+0.578
3. A.Dunn
Rodin Motorsport
+2.087
4. Fershor river
MP Motorsport
+3.492
5. P.Stanek
Invicta Racing
+3.532
6. G.Mini
Prema
+4.254
7. L.Fornaroli
Invicta Racing
+4.403
8. V.Martin
ART Grand Prix
+5.601
9. L. Browning
Hitech GP
+6.185
10. K.Maini
DAMS
+6.672
11. O.Goethe
MP Motorsport
+7.361
12. D.Durksen
AIX Racing
+7.556
13. S.Montoya
Prema
+8.244
14. A.Kordil
Rodin Motorsport
+9.203
15. D. Beganovich
Hitech GP
+10.463
16. S.Megetunif
Trident
+11.113
17. R.Villagomes
Van Amersfoort Racing
+12.226
18. R.Miata
ART Grand Prix
+13.923
19. M.Esterson
Trident
+15.553
20. D.Bennett
Van Amersfoort Racing
+26.266
– D.Crawford
DAMS
The gathering
– K. Shields
AIX Racing
The gathering
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