Rafael Câmara won the second Formula 2 feature race of the weekend around Baku, finishing 0.747 seconds clear of his championship rival Nikola Tsolov. Alex Dunne crossed the line first, but a five-second time penalty demoted him to third for his third podium of the weekend. Feeder Series spoke to the podium finishers about their pace in the post-race press conference.

By Cliona Sheerin

Câmara returned to the top step of the podium for the first time since the Spa feature race. After pitting at just the right time, the Invicta Racing driver was on the back of Dunne for the race lead. A five-second time penalty for the Irishman meant the win was almost guaranteed for Câmara, but a hard-charging Tsolov behind made things difficult for the Brazilian in the latter stages of the race. 

“I was expecting [the pace] to be a bit better than yesterday,” Câmara told Feeder Series. “We managed to do that step from yesterday. Still missing a little bit, especially compared to Niko that was quite quick behind, but overall we had very good pace, just struggling really to follow. Probably trying something in the beginning with Alex could maybe help with the balance, but in the end it is what it is and I tried to take that position back in the end, but it was just not really possible.”

Stenhorne started from pole for the first time in his F2 career following Friday’s second qualifying session. He got the jump on teammate Dunne as the lights went out with Câmara maintaining third. Mari Boya had a slow start from fourth, and Noel León capitalised on it, taking two positions before the first corner to move up to fourth. Meanwhile, Tsolov, starting 11th because of a three-place grid penalty for crossing the white line at pit entry during yesterday’s feature race, lost out to Ritomo Miyata at the start.

The safety car was called on the opening lap to clear a first-corner incident involving Roman Bilinski, Rafael Villagómez and John Bennett. The trio went three-wide into Turn 1, and Bennett, on the outside of the corner, was tagged into a spin by the Van Amersfoort Racing driver, triggering his fourth retirement from the last five races. 

The restart occurred on lap three, Stenshorne bringing the field back to green. He caught those behind by surprise, with Dunne under pressure from Câmara behind. The Invicta driver attempted a move around the outside of Turn 1 but didn’t make it stick, leaving him checking his mirrors to defend third place from León. He managed to do so with the leaders staying unchanged following the resumption.

The field formed a DRS train until the pit stop window opened, with Dunne and Câmara exchanging fastest laps. While some would have pondered an early stop, trouble for Ritomo Miyata on the apex of Turn 7 on lap six of 29 pushed several to pit at the first opportunity at the end of the lap.

Dunne was the only one of the top three to dive in as yellow flags waved, and  a virtual safety car was called while he and four drivers behind. Not only did Dunne gain time over his competitors who stayed out, but it also prevented the rest of the supersoft runners from switching to the softs on the following tour.

Stenshorne and his pursuers had to wait for the VSC period to end on lap eight before attempting a pit stop. They thus faced a deficit, but after Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak hit the wall on lap nine, Rodin Motorsport and Stenshorne saw another opportunity and waited no longer to make that stop. He pitted along with Leon from fourth, with Câmara continuing once more. Stenshorne emerged almost alongside his teammate Dunne, but cold tyres gave Dunne an easy way by for the net lead of the race. 

The virtual safety car to clear Inthraphuvasak’s stricken ART Grand Prix car came on lap 10, crucially before Câmara’s planned stop at the end of the lap. But it was withdrawn just before Câmara reached pit lane, and after being service he came out ahead of Dunne to snatch the net race lead. Dunne stayed in the wheeltracks of his title rival as his tyres came up to temperature, and made the move on the main straight before lap 12 began. 

Once Goethe pitted at the end of lap 13, victory seemed assured if Dunne could hold first place, but as things played out, merely leading would not be enough. A five-second time penalty for crossing the white line at pit entry threw a spanner in the works for the race leader, and Câmara, his tyres now fully up to temperature, stayed close behind to add even more pressure on Dunne.

Meanwhile, Tsolov, having pitted at the same time as Câmara, was drawing ever closer to the podium places. The Campos driver had moved up to fourth in the pit stops from a starting position of 11th after a grid drop and inched towards Stenshorne as the laps ticked down, while also monitoring the gap to penalty-bound Dunne. By lap 21 Tsolov was close enough to shape for a move to the inside down to Turn 1, but Stenshorne braked later and held the position. He tried again on the next tour, this time completing the move for third and setting his sights on Câmara just two and a half seconds up the road. 

Câmara closed up to Dunne as Tsolov continued to take tenths after tenths out of the pair. The top three covered by less than two seconds across the line to start lap 26, and a move for the lead became a necessary defence for Câmara from the chasing Tsolov, who reported a brush with the wall as he wrangled his car around the Baku City Circuit. 

The Bulgarian got within DRS range on the penultimate lap and held it on the final lap, while Câmara fell more than one second behind Dunne at the final detection point before the chequered flag. Though the Ferrari junior lacked DRS, Tsolov was also too far to make a move. 

As such, Dunne crossed the line in first but dropped behind Câmara and Tsolov when his penalty was applied. Câmara therefore won by a margin of seven tenths and in doing so extended his lead in the championship to seven points over Tsolov, who set the fastest lap among the top 10 runners, a 1:55.715 on lap 14. 

After a difficult day yesterday when he finished fifth from pole in the sprint and retired from the first feature, Tsolov was proud of the work his team did overnight to turn their race pace around for today.

“Yesterday was a tough day,” Tsolov told Feeder Series. “We spent the whole day really analysing everything and looking at the others, what they were having as issues, what was really strong on their side. We stayed up late trying to analyse everything, which gave us the pace we have today, but I never really thought it would be that quick, flip things around completely. A lot of it comes from the car, a lot of it from me. Everything really clicked today. 

“The philosophy of all three teams is quite different to setting up the car, which is very interesting to see. We just focused on what we have and how we can maximise our own package because we didn’t really have time to completely flip everything. And we did that. I thought it would be better, I was hoping to finish P6, P7, P5 maybe in a really good race, but we ended up fighting – well, barely fighting – for the win, but we were on the podium. Much better than we expected and I’m really happy and proud with what we’ve done.”

Dunne told Feeder Series that his pace did not match the levels he showed yesterday and his fellow podium finishers showed today. Regardless, he still salvaged third after his penalty was applied. He was placed under investigation post-race for an alleged breach of yellow flag regulations at Turn 15 on lap nine, but the stewards deemed that no further action was necessary.

“I probably had to work a little bit harder than what I would have liked,” Dunne said. “Yesterday was a fairly straightforward race. I drove away and broke the DRS pretty early on the supersoft and then continued to build a gap on the soft. Maybe pitting a couple of laps earlier before everyone else probably hindered me a little bit.

“In the end, the pace was still pretty good. It was just worse than these two [Câmara and Tsolov]. When Rafa got really close, it’s quite difficult to follow around here, so that probably helped me a little bit, but I imagine if I was behind the two of them, I probably would have struggled more than when they were behind me. The pace wasn’t quite as good as it was yesterday, but I imagine a little bit of that is down to the fact that we pitted earlier than everyone.”

Polesitter Stenshorne came home fourth after falling away from Tsolov. Laurens van Hoepen crossed the line in fifth ahead of Boya, who took his best result of the season in sixth. Beganovic moved up from a starting position of 12th to a seventh-place finish while León finished eighth. Gabriele Minì recovered from 16th to ninth over the line to claim two championship points, though he still lost significant ground in the championship with the rest of his title rivals finishing in the podium positions. Bilinski rounded out the points finishers in 10th.

Sebastián Montoya, who pitted for a second time on lap 25 and finished 17th, set the fastest overall lap, a 1:55.494, on the final tour.

Câmara’s 25 points for victory moved him to 207 overall, with Tsolov second on 200 points after scoring the bonus point for fastest lap. Dunne’s third podium of the weekend and an overall haul of 50 points scored in Baku means he sits on 189 points. Minì was demoted to fourth over the course of the weekend and is now 44 points off Câmara at the top of the standings.

Campos remain the leaders of the teams’ championship on 333 points, while Invicta stay second on 297, just one point ahead of Rodin after they scored 87 points over the course of the weekend.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency