Victor Martins and Jak Crawford delivered their first wins of the Formula 2 season in Barcelona. At the same time, championship protagonists Paul Aron and Isack Hadjar further extended their points advantages. Feeder Series analyses the takeaways from the first of three consecutive F2 rounds.

By Steven Walton

DAMS breakthrough

DAMS has shown promise at points this year and coming into Barcelona, the team must have believed they were overdue for a big result.

This weekend, that promise finally came to fruition. A clean weekend and good strategies saw the team collect a memorable victory and double podium on Sunday.

Jak Crawford led the team’s assault throughout the weekend, qualifying second on Friday, sprinting to fourth on Saturday, and winning his first-ever F2 feature race on Sunday.

But arguably, the more powerful performance came from Crawford’s teammate, Juan Manuel Correa. He gambled with the alternate strategy in the feature race and came away with a stunning third-place finish. 

It was a symbolic and moving result – Correa’s first F2 podium since his recovery from the 2019 Spa crash that claimed the life of Anthoine Hubert.

Aron and Hadjar start to run away

Paul Aron and Isack Hadjar further cemented themselves as this year’s F2 championship protagonists with strong points finishes in Barcelona.

Aron qualified on pole and then continued his streak of podiums by finishing third in the sprint and fourth in the feature race. While he has yet to win in F2, Aron has scored at least one podium at all six rounds this year.

Hadjar qualified outside the top ten in Barcelona for the first time in 2024, but recovered to sixth in the sprint and fifth in the feature race.

Aron now has exactly 100 points this season and continues to lead the F2 standings with a nine-point advantage over Hadjar.

Former points leader Zane Maloney still sits third, though his gap to Aron has climbed to 27 points. Maloney was never a frontrunner in Barcelona and  only scored four points for finishing seventh in the feature race.

Meanwhile, Crawford’s breakthrough victory has considerable championship ramifications. The American driver moved from 32 to 62 points due to his Barcelona results – and that’s seen him leap from 11th up to fourth in the standings.

Technical gremlins strike

Having to end a race with a technical problem is crushing for drivers, given how random and uncontrollable the circumstances tend to be.

In Barcelona, both AIX Racing cars had their feature races ended by technical problems and had to stop on track to retire.

For Joshua Dürksen, his frustration over the team radio was palpable when his car stopped on Lap 17. It ended any chance of what could have been a points finish or even a podium.

The AIX drivers are not alone in their frustration, as unexpected technical issues have cropped up a handful of times this year.

Hadjar lost potentially valuable points due to issues in both Jeddah races; Richard Verschoor broke down while leading in Monaco, cruelly robbing him of the chance to fight for a famous win, and Gabriel Bortoleto was hampered by problems in back-to-back feature races in Jeddah and Melbourne.

Yet another close qualifying

Formula 2 has had a string of close qualifying sessions recently, with Barcelona producing the tiniest margins yet.

On Friday, Aron qualified on pole with a lap that was just 0.002s faster than Crawford and 0.006s faster than MP Motorsport driver, Franco Colapinto. 

This was the third straight round where pole position was decided by less than a tenth of a second. Verschoor beat Victor Martins to the Monaco pole by 0.027s, while Bortoleto trumped Ollie Bearman in Imola by 0.055s.

In Barcelona, the fine margins were not just on the front row. Less than three-tenths separated the top eight fastest times in qualifying.

It is hard to find a better illustration of just how much every tenth matters.

Colapinto enjoying his time in Europe

Colapinto has enjoyed an uptick in form since F2 returned to Europe. He previously told Feeder Series that he was not comfortable in the car during the first three flyaway rounds, but he found a better feeling during an in-season test held before the Imola round.

Since then, Colapinto has picked up his maiden F2 win in the Imola sprint and this past weekend in Barcelona, he delivered his best qualifying of the season – third place – and then finished Sunday’s race in second place, his first feature race podium.

Since returning to Europe, Colapinto’s points tally has grown from 13 to 56. This puts him seventh in the standings and level on points with teammate Dennis Hauger.

Colapinto now has more points than any other rookie on the grid, apart from championship leader Aron. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency