Jak Crawford won the Formula 2 feature race in Monaco on Sunday ahead of Leonardo Fornaroli and Sebastián Montoya in a race that was suspended twice for on-track incidents, including a first-corner pile-up that eliminated seven drivers. 

By Martin Lloyd

From its start to its abrupt, untimely finish after 16 laps, the Monaco feature race Sunday morning was uncharacteristically chaotic.

The puzzling events began when Sebastián Montoya, fifth on the grid, stalled as he attempted to leave for the formation lap in an exact replica of events at Imola last week. He was forced to start from the pit lane.

At the start, Martins’ launch was much better than Dunne’s, and the Frenchman pulled ahead on the outside line entering Sainte Dévote. Dunne decided to try for a move anyway into the corner even though he was behind before the apex, and the pair made contact. The impact pushed Martins into the wall, and Dunne went with him. 

With the front two drivers blocking half of the track, nine drivers were caught up in the ensuing pile-up. Gabriele Minì, Pepe Martí, Ritomo Miyata, Amaury Cordeel, Max Esterson and Sami Meguetounif were stranded behind them, while fourth-place starter Richard Verschoor was forced to stop further along the Beau Rivage section with suspension damage sustained from hitting Dunne. 

Dunne was penalised with a drive-through penalty converted to a 10-place penalty for the sprint race in Barcelona. In a change from the convention of previous F2 penalties this season, the penalty will not apply to both races.

Leonardo Fornaroli, who had started third, managed to avoid the incident and emerged in the lead. 

“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Fornaroli explained to Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “I knew that both of them are very aggressive drivers. Victor had a very good start, went on the outside of Alex and I knew Alex was not going to give up! So I said, ‘Okay, chill, maybe they can crash and go in the wall.’” 

“As soon as they touched, I didn’t know what to do because I was thinking, ‘Are they going to come back onto the track or go straight into the wall?’ As I saw they were going straight, I just prepared a mega exit and I luckily escaped the crash.”

The race was immediately red-flagged with 11 cars requiring attention at the first corner. Three of those later rejoined the race, which resumed 40 minutes after the accident with a rolling start under safety car conditions. 

Race control determined during the red-flag period that the order would be the original grid order without the cars that had retired. Fornaroli was thus first ahead of Montoya, who had been reprieved after his original stall. Arvid Lindblad was third, with Jak Crawford fourth.

Amaury Cordeel was one of several drivers from the Turn 1 melee allowed to restart despite the fact that his Rodin machine was lifted away by a crane, while others, including Gabriele Minì, were not allowed to continue after parking up trackside and waiting in their cars.

Article 22.4 of the F2 sporting regulations states that “if any physical assistance received during the race results in the car re-joining [sic] the stewards may disqualify the driver from the race”.

When contacted about the application of the outside assistance rule, the FIA told Feeder Series that “any car with damage was not allowed to restart in the interest of time and trying to get the race restarted and finished within the time available”.

After two laps behind the safety car, Fornaroli led the 15 remaining drivers away for the first period of green-flag running. On the second lap after the restart, Joshua Dürksen, running seventh, misjudged the braking point of Kush Maini ahead of him at La Rascasse and hit the rear of the DAMS. Maini continued unscathed, but the contact sent Dürksen into the barriers and out of the race, causing a virtual safety car. 

Once Dürksen’s stricken AIX Racing machine had been cleared, a period of relative calm emerged. Most of the drivers had restarted the race on soft tyres, and all were still required to make a mandatory pit stop. Those who restarted on supersofts included Oliver Goethe, Rafael Villagómez and Dino Beganovic, all of whom took the opportunity to pit after six laps had passed.The potential advantage of that strategy, however, was nullified when Beganovic crashed heavily at Casino Square on lap 14. 

The virtual safety car was called again later that lap, which meant that drivers could not make their mandatory stop. Drivers were acutely aware, however, that they could do so if this was upgraded to a full safety car period. 

In the post-race press conference, Crawford explained that he had slowed down before the pit entry in anticipation of a potential safety car. When race control announced its deployment at the end of lap 15, he had just gone through Rascasse, the final corner before pit entry.

While Crawford pitted, the leading trio of Fornaroli, Montoya and Lindblad had all passed pit entry and quickly got stuck behind the safety car, restricting them to a lower speed than Crawford. The top three pitted at the end of lap 16, but the American comfortably passed all of them. Then on lap 18, with the damage to the barriers at Casino Square still extensive, the red flag was waved for the second and final time. The race did not resume. 

Crawford thus earned his second race win of the season after his sprint race triumph at Imola. Lindblad had passed Montoya in the pits, but the Briton was relegated to fifth after receiving a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Lindblad was originally shuffled back to ninth after the results were erroneously taken from lap 17 rather than lap 16 as article 43.10 of the regulations stipulates. 

With the race not reaching half distance, Crawford scored 13 points for the victory. Fornaroli took 10 points with his  third podium of the season, but he could have taken his first single-seater win in four years – and three crucial extra points – were it not for the unlucky timing of the safety car deployment. 

Montoya achieved his first F2 podium with third, ahead of Luke Browning in fourth and Lindblad in fifth. Sprint race winner Maini was sixth ahead of Roman Staněk. With only the top nine drivers taking points under the reduced allocation, Cordeel and Villagómez rounded out the scorers. 

Dunne lost the championship lead with his crash, with Browning taking over at the top on 70 points. Dunne is five points back on 65, with Fornaroli just behind on 64. Former leader Verschoor lies on 59, while Crawford’s win has elevated him to fifth on 56. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency