Campos Racing’s Pepe Martí won his second-ever Formula 2 race in Saturday’s action-packed sprint, finishing ahead of Richard Verschoor. Feeder Series spoke to Martí and Verschoor after the race to find out how cooler track temperatures affected their tyre management and on-track battles throughout the race. 

By Tori Turner

Despite starting 11th on the grid, Martí came in contention for the win during the latter stages of the race after a chaotic safety-car restart. A last-lap lunge on sprint polesitter Dürksen sealed victory for the Spaniard, who had waited for the right opportunity to pounce.

Speaking in the post-race press conference, Martí said that the final laps were ‘a lottery’ when it came to whether his overtakes would stick.

“I was just taking my chances in the last few laps. There was not much I could do,” he said. “I was just going into the corner and seeing, ‘Okay, there are two guys on the inside, so I’m going to try and get the switch back.’ It could have worked, it could not have worked. Today went my way, but that’s a part of racing.”

Hours after the race ended on Saturday evening, AIX Racing’s Dürksen was disqualified from third on track for running with a diffuser strake that was seven millimetres below the minimum height specified in the F2 technical regulations.

Heading into Turn 1, Dürksen held on to first as Alex Dunne pushed Victor Martins wide, sending the ART driver through the polystyrene boards and into the run-off area. Martí made up a total of five positions on the opening lap, taking advantage of Browning’s slow start and Martins’ incident, before the safety car came out for the stricken car of Sebastián Montoya, who was hit by Amaury Cordeel. 

Dürksen kept his position after controlling the restart at the end of lap four, but he was now only seven-tenths ahead of Hitech’s Dino Beganovic. Martí began fighting with Dunne, finally overtaking the McLaren junior for fifth entering Turn 4 on lap six before they switched positions two laps later.

On lap 11, two laps after finally coming within DRS range of Dürksen, Beganovic slotted himself into first after completing the overtake on Dürksen out of Turn 3. The Paraguayan quickly told his team over the radio that he was intentionally saving his tyres for the end of the race.

Chaos ensued at the end of lap 15 after Max Esterson came to a halt at the side of the track, triggering another safety car period. Kush Maini pitted from last place that time around, while  six more drivers, including Gabriele Minì and Leonardo Fornaroli, joined him in pitting for fresh tyres on lap 16. 

The race resumed once more at the end of lap 18 with Dürksen taking back first from Beganovic before Turn 1. A battle for third ensued behind, with Dunne attempting a move on Verschoor before Martí and Luke Browning joined the fray to go four-wide into Turn 4. Verschoor held on to third from Martí as Dunne hit Browning while fighting for fifth on exit, handing Rafael Villagómez the position.

Having remained in DRS range for several laps Beganovic attempted to retake first from Dürksen on the outside of Turn 1 on the penultimate lap. Dürksen fended off the move, but their fighting helped those behind to close the gap. Verschoor saw an opportunity to move up to second after Beganovic failed to overtake, but Martí took advantage of their fighting to pass both drivers in Turn 8 for second. 

Just eight corners later and at the start of the final lap, Martí closed the gap to Dürksen and executed the race-winning overtake into Turn 1, with Verschoor also overtaking the Paraguayan for second around the outside of Turn 12.

“Doing a sprint race on soft tyres in Formula 2 is never gonna be easy, but I think my experience helped me on that today,” Verschoor said.

Beganovic crossed the line fourth but inherited the final podium position after Dürksen’s disqualification. Oliver Goethe, who finished fourth, set the fastest lap eligible for points, a 1:48.899 on lap 21. The other Campos of Arvid Lindblad had an impressive drive from 16th to fifth, whilst Villagómez could only manage sixth after fighting for a podium early in the race. Minì and Fornaroli rounded out the points-paying positions in seventh and eighth. 

Having fallen down to 12th in just a few laps, Dunne got a snap of oversteer at Turn 7 on the final lap and hit Ritomo Miyata. He limped across the line in 19th and received a five-second post-race time penalty for the move.

Throughout the race, which took place at sunset, the drivers contended with warm track temperatures of 36.5°C, albeit almost 15 degrees cooler than the other sessions this weekend.

“It was a bit cooler, but I think especially tomorrow is going to be tough because we race at the most heat of the day,” Verschoor told Feeder Series. “It was good practice for tomorrow, but I’m not sure how much we can take because tomorrow’s going to be exaggerated a lot. The prime tyres don’t seem to work so well in the heat.”

All drivers started on the higher-degradation softer tyre compound, but Martí said he was completely confident about tyre management throughout the day.

“From a tyres perspective, I knew that we were going to be fast. One of my strengths is tyre management,” he said. “I’ve always proved that in races like this. I agree with Richard, I think if today was a stroll, tomorrow’s gonna be literally a walk in the park. We’re going to have to take very good care of both the option and the prime tyres and hope for the best after lap six.”

So what was Martí’s biggest challenge today?

“I was most concerned about my visor because I was running out of tear-offs about lap six,” he told Feeder Series. “I had like three tear-offs left for the whole race, so I was going through them. I was waiting, ‘Should I do it until the end of the lap? Should I do it?’”

“But that’s why you decided to go to P1,” Verschoor interjected.

“Exactly! It was a good reason,” Martí answered. “No, actually it was really good that I got into P1 because I took the last tear-off before T14 in the last lap because I was like, ‘I need to have good vision for Josh.’”

Dürksen originally held the championship lead, but with his disqualification, Verschoor earned the points lead by two points over Martí and Fornaroli, who starts from pole for tomorrow’s feature race.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency