Arvid Lindblad’s Barcelona feature race victory was never really in doubt after he built a lead of 2.7 seconds in the first stint and 4.5 seconds before the race-ending safety car. 

By Calla Kra-Caskey

The Formula 2 feature race in Barcelona featured a drastic split between the prime and alternate strategies. As they converged at the end, Jak Crawford quickly caught Richard Verschoor and Sebastián Montoya, but a safety car arising from Leonardo Fornaroli’s late trip into the gravel prevented the DAMS driver from attempting a pass for the podium. 

The top five drivers on the grid all started on the soft tyre. Lindblad got an excellent start from pole position and maintained the lead from Montoya, while sprint race winner Verschoor slotted into third after lining up fifth. Kush Maini, meanwhile, had a difficult start, dropping from third to 11th in the opening corners. 

Joshua Dürksen became the first driver to pit for hard tyres at the end of lap six, dropping from sixth to 19th. As the rest of the top eight drivers on softs pitted over the following 10 laps, there was only one change in the net race order among them – and it came with controversy.

When Luke Browning, originally fifth, eventually emerged from the pits on fresh hard tyres on lap 10, Dürksen was just behind him. Just after the Hitech driver exited, Dürksen passed him for 17th around the outside into Turn 1, but the AIX driver went off track while doing so and failed to remain to the left on the bollard. He was told to give the position back but did not do so. As a result, he was handed two five-second penalties for the incident, one for leaving the track and gaining an advantage and one for failing to follow the race director’s instructions. 

Lindblad pitted from the lead at the end of lap 12, emerging 12th on track and net first in strategy. This handed the race lead to his Campos Racing teammate Pepe Martí, then, once he pitted on lap 13, to Ritomo Miyata, who held it until he pitted at the end of lap 16. 

At the start of lap 22, Miyata passed Browning for 12th on track at Turn 1 despite initially going off track on the inside of the pit straight. Browning then fought back but touched Miyata at Turn 4, pushing him into the gravel. The ART driver fell to 15th, while Browning was forced to pit for a new front wing. Browning also received a 10-second penalty for causing the collision. 

Crawford switched to soft tyres on that lap, handing the race lead to Alex Dunne. The American emerged from the pits in 14th and began to carve through the drivers on hard tyres. He passed Miyata for 10th on track on lap 24 and climbed to fourth by overtaking Martí on lap 30.

Over the next five laps, he cut into Verschoor’s six-second advantage, making it into his DRS window at the beginning of lap 35 of 37. But Crawford was unable to pass him immediately as Verschoor also had DRS from Montoya. 

“In the end, he was really quick in the places where he couldn’t really overtake, and then I was quick in the places where I needed to be quicker to defend, so it was quite good,” Montoya said about the pair’s battle in the post-race press conference. “It was kind of like a yo-yo. He would get close, drop out, get close, drop out.” 

Dunne made similar work of the field three laps after Crawford, emerging from the pits in 12th on lap 26 and eventually making it up to fifth by lap 33. He set the fastest lap on lap 27. 

Leonardo Fornaroli pitted at the end of lap 33, but he went into the gravel exiting Turn 3 just afterwards with an apparent front-left tyre issue. He had already been at the back of the pack after serving a 10-second stop/go penalty early on for a starting procedure infringement. Though he was still classified 21st, it was his first non-finish in a race of any kind since February 2022.

The safety car came out on lap 35 and neutralised the action for the remaining two and a half laps, preventing Crawford from attempting to overtake for the podium. 

“I cannot lie to say that I was not excited when the safety car came out,” Verschoor said after finishing third behind Lindblad and Montoya. 

Martí, Maini and Miyata finished sixth, seventh and ninth respectively on the primary strategy. Victor Martins was eighth, having been the first driver on the alternate strategy to pit on lap 17, while fellow alternate strategy runner Gabriele Minì was 10th to complete the points finishers. 

Dunne still leads the drivers’ standings on 87 points, but Verschoor is just three points behind him and Lindblad a further five behind the Dutchman. Verschoor and Lindblad both said they felt good about the upcoming round in Austria – and the title fight ahead. 

“I’d like to hope we’d sort of challenge and ideally win the feature race [in Austria] as well, but I think that’s everyone’s goal,” Lindblad said. 

“Since Jeddah I’ve made a good step forward and the whole of this tripleheader we’ve been really competitive. In Imola we were fighting for the win in the feature race; Monaco as well we were right in the game. The last couple rounds we’ve been there, so I think just keep doing what we’re doing, keep focusing on the basics, doing everything in our control right, and we’ll see where we end up.” 

“I feel like we have been [in the title fight] the whole year,” Verschoor said. “We’ve been very strong, very consistent. I really feel good with the team. They’ve given me a good car like 95 per cent of the time, and the times where we didn’t, we managed to turn it around. And I think that’s very important in this championship. 

“Austria is a very good track for myself. I have had very good results, many Dutch fans as always, and last year MP was on pole, so I think we have all the ingredients to do well there.” Verschoor won the Red Bull Ring feature race on track before being disqualified in 2022. He then won the 2023 feature race but failed to score in either race there last year. 

Montoya’s second-place finish marks his second consecutive feature race podium from three consecutive top-five qualifications, although today was the first of those three feature races in which he didn’t stall on the formation lap. He credited his improved qualifying and race results to work within Prema. 

“Last year, at the end of F3, I started to qualify quite well as well,” he told Feeder Series. “We’ve been doing a lot of work. I struggled quite a bit with the car in one-lap pace when I first got in it as well in Abu Dhabi. In Barcelona [pre-season testing], I got a bit better, and it’s just working on the sim, working on the data, working on the car to find the correct feeling that I want.

“It comes down to the hard work we’ve been doing, the amount of trust the team has in me, and the amount of trust I have in them that they’ll find the correct solution. It’s fun to drive, so I enjoy it.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency