F2 | Baku: Durksen and Verschoor win, Bortoleto new leader

Baku has often provided unpredictable races that were resolved only in the final laps and this was also the case in Formula 2. The Azerbaijan weekend saw Durksen’s first win and Verschoor’s triumph, but it also provided good performances by rookie drivers, such as Minì who scored a podium in the sprint race, and a change of leadership at the top of the championship. Also noteworthy was Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s podium in the Feature Race.

Gabriel Bortoleto has in fact taken advantage of the second weekend without points for Hadjar, thus overtaking him in the standings: the Brazilian is now the championship leader with a 4.5-point advantage over his French rival with two events to go, namely Qatar and Abu Dhabi. His rivals are further behind, with Maloney 34.5 points behind Bortoleto, while Aron’s gap increases by two points compared to that of the Rodin driver.

The championship will now take a long break while waiting for the last two races of the championship, between the end of November and the beginning of December.

Sprint Race: first victory for Durksen

Joshua Durksen prevailed in the sprint race, taking the lead towards the end of the race by overtaking two absolute rookies, Christian Mansell and Gabriele Minì, which allowed him to score his first success in Formula 2.

Starting from fourth place, Durksen took advantage of a bad start by Jack Crawford to move into the top three positions, right behind the two rookies who, with the inverted grid, found themselves in the front rows. Minì was good at exploiting the gap that had been created at the start, immediately taking second place from Crawford, placing himself right in front of Durksen.

After an initial part of the race with the leading positions essentially frozen, during the seventh lap Minì made his first move and, with the DRS, took the lead in the sprint race in his first ever race in the preparatory series, given that this weekend he replaced Oliver Bearman, who is competing in F1 with Haas.

The Italian immediately tried to pull away from Mansell, who lost the position to Durksen on the following lap, but he never really managed to pull away, with the AIX driver becoming increasingly threatening behind him. The overtaking move that gave Durksen the lead of the Grand Prix came on lap 13, with an attack that was a carbon copy of the previous ones, namely with the DRS at the braking point of turn 1.

Joshua Durksen, AIX Racing

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Having built up a lead of almost five seconds, Durksen saw his advantage disappear when an incident involving Ritomo Miyata, who ran wide into the barriers at turn three after an attempted overtaking, prompted race officials to deploy the safety car on lap 15. After the restart, Durksen held on to the line to claim his first Formula 2 victory.

Crawford and Minì closed behind him, with the latter thus taking third place and his first podium on his absolute debut in the category: the Italian had the potential to reach second place but, at the restart, with cold tyres and brakes, he made a mistake at the first braking point, losing the position to the American driver.

Fourth position for Martins, while Bortoleto finished in fifth position despite a contact a few laps from the end caused by Mansell, who pushed his tires a lot in the first part of the race, due to a certain inexperience in the category, then losing positions. The Trident driver thus finished in eighth position, also behind Aron and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Feature Race: Verschoor returns to winning ways

If the sprint race was more linear, in the Feature Race there were moments of tension starting from the turning off of the traffic lights, when the red flag was shown after a few seconds due to an accident involving the Invicta Maini driver, Oliver Goethe of MP Motorsport and Pepe Marti of Campos.

After lining up in fifth position, Maini stalled on the starting grid and remained stationary on the grid. While part of the group managed to avoid the accident, Goethe came into contact with the Invicta, as did Marti, with the latter’s car overturning and ending up against the pit wall.

Pepe Marti’s Campos Racing car is thrown into the air after a collision with Kush Maini’s Invicta Racing.

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Both Maini and a representative of the Invicta team were summoned by the stewards to explain what had happened. During the hearing, the stewards determined that Maini had not activated the starting procedure as is normally done, which caused the initial stall and subsequent crash. As a result, Maini was given a 10-second penalty, which was converted into a five-place grid drop for the next race he will compete in.

With a 34-minute delay, the race became a race against time, with the resulting reduction in points up for grabs. At the restart, Verschoor maintained the lead thanks to his pole position on Friday, while behind him there was no shortage of duels. Luke Browning was involved in an intense duel with Dennis Hauger, with the latter penalised for a contact that caused damage to the British driver’s front wing.

Meanwhile, Antonelli and Martins began to battle for second place, with the Frenchman not only overtaking the Italian, but also the Trident Dutchman with around 21 minutes to go with a DRS attack into Turn 1. The situation changed after the pit stops, however, when Martins suffered a slow stop, which cost him precious seconds.

After the round of pit stops, championship contender Zane Maloney attempted to defend himself from Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Turn 3, but ended up blocking and making contact with the Italian: while Antonelli was able to continue, albeit with a slightly damaged car, the Rodin driver ended up in the escape road, slipping back in the standings.

Richard Verschoor, Trident, 1st position, Victor Martins, ART Grand Prix, 2nd position, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Prema Racing, 3rd position, on the podium.

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

With 12 minutes to go in the Feature Race, the gap between Verschoor and Martins had dropped to just under 2.5 seconds, with the Frenchman attempting to continue his charge, dropping below two seconds with three minutes to go. With five minutes to go, Martins was on the verge of entering DRS range, 1.1s down, but was unable to get back into the gap to activate the deployable wing.

The battle ended when Gabriele Minì hit the wall at Turn 15, bringing out the Safety Car with two minutes to go. The Feature Race was thus neutralised and Verschoor took his first win of the 2024 season. Martins and Antonelli completed the podium in second and third respectively.

In terms of the championship, after starting in twentieth position due to his mistake in qualifying, Isack Hadjar (Campos) was unable to recover to the points zone, meaning the Frenchman finished with another zero for the second consecutive round. On the contrary, Gabriel Bortoleto obtained a good fourth place, taking the lead in the standings with a four and a half points advantage with only two rounds to go.

Durksen also scored points with a fifth place and Aron in sixth position, who preceded Browning, Crawford, Hauger and Mansell to round out the top ten.