DINO BEGANOVIC WINS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FORMULA 2 AS HITECH SEALS 1-2
Ferrari Junior Dino Beganovic has won for the first time ever in FIA Formula 2 at Baku, during the Sprint race of the Azerbaijan GP.
The race had a very chaotic start, with polesitter Rafael Villagomez having a bad launch off the line, and immediately colliding with Pepe Marti, which saw the retirement for both drivers at the start.
Oliver Goethe and Arvid Lindblad have also made contact in turn 2, and all the Red Bull juniors were out of contention within sector 1. Only Lindblad survived, but lost a ton of time with the contact.
Safety car came in, and left the track on lap 4, where Dino Beganovic led Sebastian Montoya and Martinius Stenshorne. In the meanwhile at the back, Kush Maini and Cian Shields made contact in turn 2, which forced the Indian driver to retire.
Dino Beganovic pulled a three second gap to Montoya behind, and the rookie Martinius Stenshorne did not want to lose any second behind a struggling Prema. Around the inside, the Norwegian overtook Montoya and went up to P2.
However, four corners later, Martinius was forced to retire from the race due to an engine issue, victim of the Mecachrome problems.
The fight for P5 was going at full steam between Dunne, Mini, Fornaroli and Crawford, but it was interrupted due to the Safety car coming out again for Stenshorne.
With 9 laps to go, the first rain drops started to appear, and the drivers complained about a slippery track, and everybody had to take it very carefully to get to the end of the race.
At the restart, Dunne overtook Browning for P3, while Dino and Montoya escaped down the road, but a mistake from the Irish a couple laps later, allowed Browning to return to the podium places. Mini also overtook Dunne.
It did not take long for the Mclaren junior to recover his raw pace, and was immediately attacking Mini for the P4 again.
On lap 17, Browning got to the tow of Sebastian Montoya and went up to second place, chasing after a 1-2 for Hitech on a very strong track for the British team.
A lap later, Montoya was also victim of an engine issue, and slowed down, dropping to P17. He saw the podium he had in his hands being taken away on his dad’s 50th birthday.
Dunne was then able to go up to the last step of the podium, with Crawford, who overtook Fornaroli for P4, as Mini was struggling with pace, and got overtaken on the last metres of the race by Richard Verschoor, and finished P7.
Victor Martins picked up the last points, ahead of Joshua Durksen and Arvid Lindblad. The feature race kicks off on Sunday morning at 11:00 AM Local time.
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