Dino Beganovic took his second victory on the bounce and third overall in Formula 2 in the first of three races around the Baku City Circuit. The DAMS driver won from a starting position of third, finishing ahead of Laurens van Hoepen and Alex Dunne following a late safety car restart. Feeder Series spoke to the top three following the conclusion of the contest.

By Cliona Sheerin

Less than two weeks on from his feature race triumph around the Madring, Beganovic took his second victory of the F2 season, once again in commanding fashion. But it almost wasn’t to be at all as the DAMS driver felt unwell before the race, so naturally, he did not rate his chances very highly before things got underway. 

“I was feeling extremely bad this morning when I woke up,” Beganovic told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “I skipped all my warm-up meetings because I was feeling extremely bad. So I didn’t have very high hopes, but [I] just locked in and did a good start and after that did my own race. Super happy [with] how it went. A bit low on energy now but we’ve got to find something to give me some energy for this afternoon.”

Nikola Tsolov, starting from pole with the top 10 from qualifying one reversed, lined up for Friday morning’s race immediately ready to cover off Van Hoepen into the first corner. And that he did with a good launch off the line to maintain his lead. Beganovic slotted in behind with a sweeping move around the outside of Turn 1.

The run down to Turn 2 saw an incident that brought out an opening-lap safety car. Rafael Câmara missed his braking point, locking up and rear-ending Mari Boya ahead, who was turned around and sent down the run-off area and out of the race from fifth place. The Brazilian was hit with a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision.  

Sebastián Montoya stayed where he started in fourth, the drivers behind moving up a place with Boya dropping out of the order. Dunne, who will start on pole for the feature race later in the day, made up four positions on the opening lap to move up to sixth, including a double overtake at Turn 3 on Kush Maini and Noel León. 

Tsolov waited as long as possible heading onto lap four to get things underway at one of the trickiest restart zones of the year, but he ultimately held off Beganovic’s advances to stay in the lead. Câmara, his time penalty hanging over him, did not hang about on the restart, working his way past Montoya through the first two corners. Dunne followed him through down the inside of Turn 3, replicating his opening-lap manoeuvre. 

Despite his efforts to pull out of DRS range, Tsolov had Beganovic right on his back as lap six began. The Swede used the slipstream to bridge the last few tenths of the gap before pulling to the outside and into the lead before Turn 1. By the following tour, he had almost broken free of DRS, pulling out a nine-tenth lead to the championship leader behind. 

Câmara made an error on lap eight, taking too much kerb on the exit of Turn 16. Dunne immediately pounced, moving up to fourth. Montoya almost did the same with Câmara’s corner exit hampering his run on to the main straight, but the Invicta driver managed to stay in front, holding the inside line into Turn 1. 

Title rival Tsolov then took too much kerb himself on lap 10, and Van Hoepen seized the opportunity to move into second place before Turn 17. That took the pressure off Beganovic for the time being, the Ferrari junior’s lead now sitting at over a second and a half. 

Things went from bad to worse for Tsolov on lap 13. After noting over the radio that he had ‘no rears’, he was swamped by Dunne on the main straight. Câmara followed through at Turn 2, swiftly dropping the points leader out of the podium spots. Stenshorne was next to get down the inside of Tsolov at Turn 1, recreating a move that had already gotten him past León and Montoya on previous tours. 

The gap at the front had grown by a further second between Beganovic and Van Hoepen when Dürksen found the wall at Turn 1 on lap 18. As he went to overtake León for 13th, the Invicta driver missed the apex of the first corner and met the barrier on exit. 

Much to the dismay of his teammate Câmara, who had worked to minimise the damage of his 10-second penalty, the pack was bunched up once more. He decided to serve the penalty in-race, diving into the pits and switching to the supersoft tyres after the required holding time. He emerged in 18th with just one lap to salvage valuable championship points.   

Beganovic led the field on to a one-lap shootout as the safety car entered the pits at the end of the penultimate lap. The field splayed out behind Beganovic as he crawled to the line before weaving down the main straight to break the tow. The frontrunners remained as they were – but a lock-up for Oliver Goethe further behind caused chaos and changes within the final points-paying positions.

Goethe couldn’t get his MP stopped down to the first corner, eventually using his teammate Minì as a braking point. Behind them, León tangled with Ritomo Miyata at the apex of Turn 1, and Câmara was forced to check up behind the stopped pair, any points chances now evading him. Goethe received a 10-second post-race time penalty for causing the collision.

Regardless of the carnage behind, Beganovic held the lead until the line, claiming back-to-back victories by a second over Van Hoepen and DAMS’ fourth around Baku.

The two restarts were crucial to get right for the rest of the podium finishers at a venue infamous for incidents at the resumption racing. 

“It’s tricky here, also with the brakes and the tyres cooling down a lot after that long straight,” Van Hoepen said. “I watched quite a few videos from previous restarts here to have some knowledge and see what happened. It’s always the same thing – you just have to be very alert and focused on the reaction time, that it’s good and that you go. I think my second restart wasn’t the best I’ve done, but it just worked out. At least I have some more experience for the feature races later.”

“Both of my restarts were actually strong,” Dunne added, “which is good because in the last couple of weekends my restarts haven’t been something that have been amazing. It was good that they were so strong, both of them today. Obviously it’s tricky because we have such a long straight before T1, so the tyres cool down, the brakes cool down, and it can be quite tricky to manage. Sometimes you go into Turn 1 a little bit blind after the restart, not really sure what the car is going to do and what the brakes are going to do, but for both of them, the brakes worked, which is good.”

Stenshorne finished fourth having made up five positions over the course of the race. Tsolov salvaged a fifth-place finish, claiming four valuable championship points with neither Minì or Câmara scoring down in 14th and 16th respectively. His lead at the stop of the standings has grown to 11 points with two feature races still to race this weekend.

Roman Bilinski crossed the line sixth having started 13th, with Montoya and Maini claiming the final points in seventh and eighth.

Herta and Bennett capitalised on the restart-lap chaos to move up to ninth and 10th over the line, having been 15th and 13th respectively beforehand. Dunne picked up the bonus point for setting the fastest lap among the drivers in the top 10, doing so with a 1:56.872 on lap 10 – just 0.017s off Câmara’s race-best 1:56.855 set immediately behind him.

The first feature race will take place later today at 14:15 local, with Rodin Motorsport’s Dunne and Stenshorne set to line up on the front row ahead of León. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency