MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor made a last-lap overtake to snatch victory from Jak Crawford in Formula 2’s Jeddah feature race after starting ninth and managing his medium tyres brilliantly for the first 23 of 28 laps. Feeder Series and selected media spoke to the podium trio after the race to get their thoughts on how it unfolded.

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Verschoor became the first driver to win an F2 race with more than 100 starts in the series, doing so on his 107th start. With Crawford and Victor Martins joining the Dutchman on the podium, the podium trio’s combined total of 225 starts is the most in F2 history. 

Crawford started on pole ahead of Martins, with Leonardo Fornaroli and Luke Browning making up the second row. Drivers on the first four rows of the grid all opted to start on supersoft tyres, with Verschoor in ninth the first driver to start on the medium compound. 

The top four all maintained their positions at the start. Arvid Lindblad, starting from fifth, attempted to pass Browning at the first chicane but couldn’t make the move stick, dropping behind Dunne at Turn 4 and losing a further position to Campos teammate Pepe Martí at the chicane a lap later.

At the beginning of lap six, the first time DRS was active all race because of an apparent technical issue, Browning passed Fornaroli around the outside at Turn 1 while Dunne overtook the Italian driver on the inside. Fornaroli became one of the first supersoft-shod drivers to pit when he came in at the end of the lap.

At the back of the field, Van Amersfoort Racing teammates John Bennett and Rafael Villagómez made contact at Turn 27 of lap six, and Bennett’s car shed debris across the track just before the entry to pit lane. That triggered a virtual safety car on lap nine, shortly after the last of the option-prime strategy runners had pitted. 

One of those who came in after lap eight was Martins, who jumped DAMS’ Crawford in the pit cycle when he emerged from pit lane. In the post-race press conference, the ART Grand Prix driver  said that his risky decision to stay out was prompted by tyre struggles. 

“I said to myself, we need to do something with the strategy, to do different, just to try to get an opportunity,” Martins said in the post-race press conference. “I took the risk when I saw the debris on the track. I was like, ‘I stay on track because I want to make that overcut’ – which kind of worked because VSC came after and I managed to stay in front.”

Behind the pair, Fornaroli passed Browning and Dunne for net third position, 11th on track, at Turn 1. Dunne also passed Browning at the same time but was judged to have pushed the Williams driver wide, for which the McLaren junior received a five-second penalty despite giving the position back after the virtual safety car. 

At the virtual safety car restart on lap 10, Martins held the net lead until Crawford passed him at the beginning of lap 12. Meanwhile, a DRS train began to form behind Browning with Dunne, Martí and Minì fighting for position. By the end of lap 16, Martì had managed to pass Dunne and Browning to lead the group.

Goethe was the first driver to switch from medium to supersoft tyres, entering the pits on lap 20 in fourth and emerging in 17th. Out front, Verschoor continued to set fastest laps until he pitted on lap 23, emerging behind Crawford in a net second position. 

“If I knew he was going to get out this close in front, Richard, I would have maybe pushed a bit more,” Martins said. “I was a bit upset to my team because they were also thinking he wasn’t going out in front [of me] but with the pace he had he would’ve got me at some point.”

While defending from Martins behind, Verschoor cut his four-second deficit to Crawford on lap 24 to less than a second over the next three laps, and he eventually took the lead on the pit straight on the final lap. 

Verschoor won from Crawford by 1.701 seconds and took the fastest lap, with Martins a further 4.151s behind and Fornaroli, Martí and Browning rounding out the top six. Dunne finished seventh on track, but his penalty dropped him to eighth behind Lindblad, who had initially been jumped in the pits by Minì but passed the Prema driver on lap 26. Minì and Kush Maini, the only other driver to score on the alternate strategy, rounded out the top 10. 

After the race, Crawford said that Verschoor’s prime-option strategy was ‘almost the preferred one if there’s no safety car’, which in this case there wasn’t. However, having taken only the two points for pole position until that point in the season, Crawford felt the risk of a safety car outweighed the possible reward and thus chose to start on supersofts.

“I had to go with the safest option,” Crawford said. “Play it safe, collect the points. I wouldn’t change anything. I’m happy with my decision.” 

For Verschoor, who didn’t make similar concessions, everything came together perfectly. He was ‘really happy’ with the result, which came just one day after losing a sprint victory to a five-second penalty he and other drivers deemed harsh. 

“You’re just in the right window, and you’re feeling it and you’re just going for it,” he told Feeder Series. “Today I was feeling great and I tried to make the maximum from the pace I had. I already felt great yesterday, but I was in hyperfocus today. I tried every corner to nail it and I barely made any mistakes. I think I was just very confident with the car, and also the encouragement of my engineer in my ear that I was doing a good job. 

“I think we were really on it today, and this is exactly what you need in F2. The moments where you can perform you need to deliver, and the moments where you struggle you need to try to get as many points as you can.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency