Prema Racing driver Gabriele Minì finished third in his debut Formula 2 race in Baku, beating Victor Martins to the final spot on the podium by just two hundredths of a second. Minì told Feeder Series after the sprint race that he drove with bent steering, which he said made the race one of the toughest of his career.

By Steven Walton

Minì is making a surprise F2 debut in Baku with Prema Racing after the team’s regular driver, Ollie Bearman, was called up to race for the Haas F1 Team in place of Kevin Magnussen, who is serving a one-race suspension.

Minì, who just two weeks ago finished second with Prema in the F3 championship, wasted no time getting into a groove in the Baku sprint race on Saturday, leading for six laps early on before finishing third after 21 laps.

On the final lap, Minì beat Victor Martins to the final spot on the podium by just 0.020s.

Paraguay’s Joshua Dürksen took his maiden F2 win in the sprint race. DAMS driver Jak Crawford finished second, marking the fifth consecutive race in which he has finished inside the points.

Minì told Feeder Series that his first F2 race was “pretty tough” and that the track was “not super clean”, especially off the racing line.

“The first part of the race was a lot about settling, trying to understand the car setup,” he said.  “I’ve never done a race sim, so it was my first racing laps today.

“It was a lot about understanding what the limit is and how to manage the tyres, and whatever we spoke with my engineer, trying to do it on track.”

The beginning of the race went “pretty well”, Minì said. 

He started third on the reversed grid and moved to second on the opening lap. On lap seven, Minì passed fellow debutant Christian Mansell for the race lead, which he then held until he was passed by eventual winner Dürksen on lap 13.

Minì said he started “dropping quite far back” after Dürksen got by. The Alpine junior said he then tapped the wall at the final corner, which bent his steering.

“I had to do half of the race with the steering wheel bent, so I would say after that it was probably one of the toughest race[s],” Minì said.

Prema’s Bearman also took pole in Baku last year despite driving with bent steering from hitting the wall during qualifying. He then won both races.

Minì was one of three drivers who made their F2 debut in the Baku sprint race. Mansell, who replaced Roman Staněk at Trident, started from reverse-grid pole position but fell back in the final laps, eventually finishing eighth. Luke Browning, who replaced Zak O’Sullivan at ART Grand Prix, finished 11th.

Minì and Mansell became the first F2 drivers to make their debuts mid-season and score points since Álex Palou took eighth in the Abu Dhabi 2017 feature race.

Minì is also the first mid-season F2 debutant to take a podium on his first start. The last driver to do so in combined F2/GP2 history was Jules Bianchi in February 2010 in a GP2 Asia round at Yas Marina.

Bianchi, like Minì now, was part of All Road Management, which capped off a banner day with F1 client Charles Leclerc taking pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency