After failing to score in both races in Monza last time out, DAMS’ Jak Crawford put himself back in the Formula 2 title fight by charging to victory in the Baku feature race from pole position. Feeder Series spoke to him after the race about what he still needs to do to win the title.

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Tricky conditions and changeable weather have played a part in the entire weekend for both F1 and F2 sessions, and today’s race was no different. The safety car led drivers around a greasy track for the formation lap, although a normal standing start was confirmed. 

“It rained in the morning. One hour before it was still kind of damp, wet-ish, so we didn’t really know what to expect for the race, especially with the car balance and the behavior of the tyres,” AIX Racing driver Joshua Dürksen said during the post-race press conference. 

“It’s good we had headwind instead of tailwind into Turn 1. Otherwise, we would’ve had big chaos into the braking [zone].” 

Unlike last year, when five drivers retired as a result of an opening-corner accident, everyone made it through the first corner cleanly. Championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli got an excellent start from second, beating Crawford off the line and passing him into Turn 1. Crawford lost a further place to Gabriele Minì into Turn 2, although he got it back on the next lap on the start-finish straight. 

Behind them, Luke Browning got a terrible start, getting swallowed by the pack and falling to eighth. F2 debutant Martinius Stenshorne avoided him masterfully before picking off Alex Dunne off for fifth at Turn 6 and passing Pepe Martí at the start-finish straight on lap two. 

Stenshorne’s first feature race, however, came to a close on lap five. Martí made an attempt to pass him into Turn 1, and while trying to defend and leave space for Martí at the same time, Stenshorne went wide into the barriers, prompting a safety car deployment. Martí was handed a 10-second post-race penalty for causing the incident. 

Because of the location of Stenshorne’s car, the safety car led all cars through the pit lane. The first time around, it was too early for drivers to make their mandatory pit stops, but the second time at the end of lap six, everyone changed tyres, massively reshuffling the field. Although Fornaroli stopped first, he had to wait for the pack to pass him, dropping him to fourth behind Minì, Crawford and Martí. 

At the lap eight restart, the top five remained the same. Browning went off track at Turn 4 following contact with Roman Staněk, later pulling into the pits for a new front wing and a tyre change and returning to the track a lap down. 

On lap nine, Minì made a mistake into Turn 16, allowing Crawford by, but it worked in his favor when he got in Crawford’s slipstream and immediately re-passed him down the start-finish straight. His lead was not to be, however, as Crawford once again passed Minì in the same place on the next lap. 

The battle for fourth also intensified during this period. Alex Dunne made an ambitious dive – with a slight lock-up – into Turn 3 on lap nine, passing Fornaroli for fourth. Dunne held the place until lap 13, when Fornaroli went into the back of his car on the start-finish straight without even attempting a pass.

Dunne went off onto the escape road and rejoined in ninth, while Fornaroli lost only one spot on track but received a 10-second penalty for the collision. 

The biggest beneficiary was Dürksen, who gained two spots from their contretemps. Last year’s Baku sprint race winner continued his upward climb, having started all the way back in 15th, by passing Martí for third into Turn 1 on lap 17 and Minì for second on the main straight on lap 19. Minì began to fade from there, dropping 1.6 seconds back from Dürksen in one lap. 

After a lap of going wheel to wheel – including light contact into Turn 3, for which Martí was summoned to the stewards but ultimately not penalised – Fornaroli passed Martí for fourth on lap 20 before overtaking a struggling Minì for third into Turn 1 on the next lap. 

Just behind them, Dino Beganovic passed Martí for fifth. The Hitech driver then made it up to fourth, which would become third with Fornaroli’s penalty, by passing Minì on the main straight on the next lap. 

Dunne was determined to make up the ground he lost following that collision. After Arvid Lindblad passed Rafael Villagómez for seventh at Turn 1, Dunne followed him through at Turn 2 and  showed Lindblad his nose into Turn 3. Lindblad held his nerve that time and the following lap, however, and the Rodin Motorsport driver eventually dropped back. 

Then on lap 24, Dunne locked up his already worn front-right tyre and went down the escape road at Turn 15. He returned to track in 18th but made the same error on the next lap. He didn’t return to the race that time, and the corner was managed by a yellow flag until the end. 

In the closing laps, Dürksen looked far faster than Crawford. He entered the start-finish straight within seven tenths of the American on each of the last three laps, but Crawford held him off masterfully and won the race by just 0.216 seconds, the closest finish of the year. 

“I tried around the outside in T1, but the grip was not feeling great, so I decided to maybe back off a bit there and just try again in T3,” Dürksen said, “because there are a lot of cases when people try to overtake around the outside and they just go into the wall. And the grip was really poor there so I was like, ‘It’s not going to work.’ So I just tried to then get him back in T3. 

“And Jak, he defended really well the last laps. I was trying to catch him. He had also a good pace, and just I wish we could’ve had one or two more laps. Then I maybe could’ve got him, but he did a really great race.” 

For Crawford, the win – as well as his pole position and fourth-place finish yesterday – meant he gained 18 points on championship leader Fornaroli, who is now just 19 points ahead. It was also a much-needed comeback for Crawford after a difficult Monza round in which he finished 16th and 11th. 

“Monza was not my fault. It was not the team’s fault,” Crawford told Feeder Series. “I had reliability issues and that was it. There was nothing we could do about it. 

“I feel like this weekend shows what we’ve been able to do in the past – what we did in Budapest before, what we did in Silverstone before that. So I see no reason why we can’t repeat in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

“Looking forward to this break to work really hard with the team. I feel like we do a really good job when there’s a good break, and we’re able to come back very prepared for the event, so I feel like that plays in our favor.”

Third-placed Beganovic, who took his maiden F2 victory yesterday’s sprint race, started his F2 career in last year’s Qatar and Abu Dhabi rounds with a bang. He finished all four of those races in the top 10, including three points finishes and a podium. 

“It’s mainly this weekend that is giving me a boost for what’s coming up next,” he said. “Obviously the experience of the track in Qatar and Abu Dhabi last year is helpful, but in the end I’m just looking forward to trying to build this on and again what we improved in Monza.”

Fornaroli crossed the line in third, but his penalty dropped him behind Beganovic and Mini to fifth. Martí crossed the line sixth, but with the Spaniard’s penalty dropping him to 11th, Lindblad was elevated to the position. Villagómez, Richard Verschoor, Sebastián Montoya and Ritomo Miyata completed the points, while Dürksen took the bonus point after setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 11 with a 1:56.798. 

Browning’s difficult feature race means he’s now third in the title fight, 27 points off Fornaroli’s lead. With 78 points still on offer, Verschoor, Dunne and Martí are all technically still in contention for the title, while Lindblad, who is 79 points off Fornaroli, was eliminated.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency