This year’s Formula 2 feature race in Jeddah will be remembered for two things: Enzo Fittipaldi’s incredible pace as he stormed to victory and his audacious race-winning move, where he passed two cars in one corner. Feeder Series and other selected media caught up with the Brazilian following his first victory of 2024.

By Steven Walton

Fittipaldi started the feature race from third and quietly held that position in the early stages. All frontrunners started on the supersoft tyres and pitted early for the mediums. During the pitstops, Fittipaldi jumped Jak Crawford for second and then, on lap 13, he eased past the net race leader, Kush Maini.

It was all going well for the Brazilian driver until a safety car on lap 16. It meant Fittipaldi was now fourth on the road behind Taylor Barnard and Amaury Cordeel, who both got a cheap pitstop under the safety car. Juan Manuel Correa led the race, but he still needed to stop.

At the restart, Fittipaldi quickly passed Barnard and then set about passing Cordeel and Correa. On lap 22, he set up the move and delivered one of the overtakes of the race. Moving to the outside of turn 1 and going deep on the brakes, Fittipaldi boldly drove around both Correa and Cordeel in turn 2 and darted off into the distance.

The move sealed the race win for Fittipaldi and he eventually took the chequered flag with a 7.8-second gap back to Maini in second place.

Post-race, Fittipaldi fought back tears as he dedicated the victory – his first-ever F2 feature race win – to his late uncle Wilson Fittipaldi, who passed away last month.

Fittipaldi explains bold overtake

In the post-race press conference, Fittipladi explained that he went for his bold move on Correa and Cordeel because he did not want to spend time stuck behind the two cars. He feared that if he remained behind them, his tyres would overheat through the high-speed corners.

“As soon as I had that momentum going into turn 1, I decided to brake very late and get both of them [at the] exit of turn 2 so I had a clean track ahead of me in the esses,” he said.

“That’s what I did and it worked out very well.”

Fittipaldi said that he was driving on the limit every single lap through the race.

“The whole team, they gave me a great car out there. I can’t thank them enough. The car was absolutely on rails every single lap,” he said.

A healthy environment at Van Amersfoort

Fittipaldi’s Jeddah victory is only the second time Van Amersfoort Racing has won a Formula 2 race. The team got their first-ever win last year in Austria’s feature race.

“Everyone at Van Amersfoort Racing works extremely hard. They have so much passion for the sport,” Fittipaldi told Feeder Series. “The atmosphere in the team is working very well this year, and I feel really well inside the team with my two mechanics and my race engineer, data engineer, teammate.

“It’s just a great feeling and I think we can do a very good job this year.”

Fittipaldi’s win caps off an extremely strong weekend. In yesterday’s sprint, he finished fourth on the road but was promoted to third when original race winner Richard Verschoor was disqualified for a non-compliant throttle map.

These results have propelled Fittipaldi to second in the championship with 32 points. Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney continues to lead the championship with 47 points.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency