Luke Browning took a commanding maiden Formula 2 victory from pole position in the Monza feature race on Sunday, overtaking Joshua Dürksen mid-race as several other championship frontrunners were involved in incidents. Feeder Series heard from the top three drivers after the race.

By Michael McClure

Having taken his maiden pole on Friday, Hitech’s Browning got a strong launch and sprinted away from second-place starter Kush Maini of DAMS, who dropped to sixth on the opening lap. Oliver Goethe rose to second from fourth on the grid, while Dürksen, who started seventh, battled Roman Staněk for third.

On lap two, Maini locked up entering the first chicane and touched wheels with Arvid Lindblad. He was shuffled wide onto the gravel on exit and fell to the rear of the field. 

At the front, however, Goethe was closing on Browning. The German driver flew past for the lead down the main straight on lap four with the help of DRS, but he struggled to break free of DRS range of the Williams junior. He therefore pitted from the lead at the end of lap six, emerging at the back of the field along with fellow early stopper Jak Crawford.

Richard Verschoor and Sami Meguetounif followed on lap seven, with title contenders Verschoor and Crawford almost making contact as the MP Motorsport driver rejoined the track after his pit stop.

The slow progression of pit stops abruptly changed seconds later. Alex Dunne, sitting fifth, was chasing Joshua Dürksen and passed him through the Curva Serraglio on lap eight. Arvid Lindblad followed behind him, but the Campos driver struggled to slow the car down for the Ascari chicane.

Lindblad slammed into the back of the Rodin Motorsport car, causing Dunne to skid across the gravel. He hit the outside wall on the entry to Ascari before coming to a stop against the barriers.

The incident brought out the safety car, and all drivers who had not yet stopped rushed to pit at the end of lap eight. There were no strategy implications as every driver had started on the less durable supersoft tyre. Browning and Staněk remained the top two after the pit stop cycle, but the big mover was Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagómez, who jumped from outside the top 10 to seventh place.

The restart at the end of lap 10 hadn’t even begun when the next incident unfolded. Cian Shields, Dürksen’s AIX Racing teammate, went spinning across the grass and into eventual retirement before the entry to Parabolica, while Amaury Cordeel damaged his front wing as the field checked up in anticipation of the 

Entering Turn 1, Browning held first place, but his biggest challenge was not from Staněk. It instead came from the out-of-control Campos of Lindblad, which was still circulating despite a heavily damaged front wing. Having pitted for new tyres after his collision with Dunne – for which he later received a 10-second penalty – Lindblad was sent out by the Campos mechanics without having a front wing change.

Unable to stop the car on the approach to Variante Rettifilo, Lindblad speared into the innocent Invicta of Staněk, who retired on the spot with damage. Lindblad continued around the lap before pitting with extensive damage to his front-left corner and left sidepod.

Behind them, Gabriele Minì pitched Victor Martins into a spin at the same corner while attempting to pass the ART Grand Prix driver for fifth place. Martins pitted to retire the car at the end of the lap. 

The next restart came on lap 14, and green-flag conditions lasted just as long. Sami Meguetounif spun across the runoff area, clipping the barriers with his left-rear tyre before ploughing into the polystyrene boards stacked neatly across the chicane. The safety car was again deployed to recover his stricken Trident. 

More critically, however, Dürksen had a stronger restart than Browning and made the move before reaching Turn 1. He was equally decisive once Meguetounif’s car had been recovered on lap 17, when Browning struggled again at the third and final restart.

This time, Browning had to defend from Villagómez, while Pepe Martí in fourth was also paying close attention. He could not pass Villagómez just yet, nor on the approach to the Roggia chicane, but his attempts slowed Villagómez and allowed Browning to pull away.

Browning began to close in on Dürksen, who was still within his DRS range. A strong run on lap 18 enabled him to sail past the Paraguayan driver into Turn 1 on lap 19, and he gradually built enough of a gap to break free of Dürksen’s DRS range by lap 26. From there, Browning’s gap ballooned to 3.560 seconds when he crossed the line first on lap 30.

“I was just ready to fight. I knew I wanted to win it, but not at all costs. I just wanted to get the best result that I could. I was realistic coming into today, having understood the pace yesterday,” Browning said. “Today, the best result that we could [get] was P1. The car was fantastic and that’s what we extracted.”

Browning’s surge was in large part enabled by Dürksen’s final-lap contact with Martí, who finally passed Villagómez at Turn 1 on lap 28 after several attempts. Entering Turn 1 on the last lap, Dürksen and Martí both moved late in the braking zone for the Variante Rettifilo. They touched wheels, with Martí losing a front wing and having to go through the escape road.

He also lost an endplate and had to defend aggressively against Villagómez with his front wing scraping along the ground. Ultimately, he retained the final podium position by 0.178 seconds over Villagómez.

“I had no idea. I hope that it’s not the floor and I won’t get DQed in half an hour!” Martí said jokingly about the damage. “But no, I didn’t feel anything, so I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”

After a challenging opening few laps marked by two separate touches with Victor Martins, championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli rebounded to fifth despite front wing damage of his own. He sealed the position via a decisive overtake on Crawford on lap 19.

Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì had both also passed Crawford by lap 23. Beganovic later took sixth away from Minì at Turn 1 on lap 26 and finished nose to tail with Fornaroli, just 0.077 seconds behind. Richard Verschoor, Sebastián Montoya and John Bennett all also passed Crawford in the closing laps, with Bennett doing so to claim the final point and his first points finish of the year. Crawford finished 11th, one spot ahead of his embattled teammate Maini.

In the championship, Fornaroli still leads Browning by 21 points, 174 to 153. Verschoor is third in 144, ahead of Crawford on 137 and Dunne on 124, neither of whom scored this weekend.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency