Taking the lead of the championship in Spa-Francorchamps, Leonardo Fornaroli extended it by winning the Feature Race, his first in Formula 2. Invicta Racing was also pleased to see their second driver Roman Stanek on the podium, making it a double.
With the rain falling during Formula 3, the track remained damp for Formula 2. The race director decided to proceed with a rolling start to not give a benefit to the drivers on the wet racing lines. At the start, both Invicta Racing drivers created a gap with the other drivers on the grid. The grid decided to split into two strategies, with some starting on medium and some others on soft. It gave an advantage to those on soft at the start like for Sami Meguetounif, who overtook Dino Beganovic for P16. Same situation at the front with Arvid Lindblad overtaking Alex Dunne.
Issues begins
Victor Martins seemed to have a mechanical issue, as he went a bit wide and went from P7 to P12. On the contrary, Luke Browning made a beautiful overtake on Jak Crawford, after a wheel-to-wheel battle. Sadly for him, he went a bit wide after, which resulted in the American taking the advantage again. A yellow flag on the last sector on lap 5 was waved, with Miyata taking the curb and span. Amaury Cordeel’s engine blew up on lap 6, causing a virtual safety car.
On the restart, Arvid Lindblad did a double overtake on Durksen and Goethe. At the same time, while Verschoor and Martì battled hard and went a bit wide, Gabriele Minì also did a double overtake. Maini took a 5-seconds penalty, for letting too much space during the virtual safety car. Victor Martins bad luck continued, as his car stopped in the middle of the track.
Penalties and tyres advantages
As the green flag was waved again, Goethe wanted to take advantage on Lindblad but locked his tyre and went wide, giving Alex Dunne two positions. The Irishman wanted to defend hard but maybe did it a bit too hard as he locked his front tyre. Both Van Amersfoort drivers touched each other. The contact destroyed Benett’s front wing, so he pitted to change it. Gabriele Minì seemed to struggle on his soft as Verschoor wanted to attack him. However, Josep Maria Martì wanted to attack Verschoor as well and ended up overtaking both of them.
Lap 15 was the moment most of the drivers on soft decided to pit. The leader of the race, Roman Staněk pitted on lap 16. Jak Crawford pitted as well but the pitstop was really long. With everyone on new tyres, Minì tried to defend his position on his teammate but touched his rear. Bennett wanted to take advantage of this situation but ended up having contact with the Italian Prema driver. The Van Amersfoort driver had to abandon. Leonardo Fornaroli took a 5-seconds penalty for speeding into the pitlane, which could have compromised his race.
Richard Verschoor is the first driver on medium to stop on lap 23. To cover this strategy, Campos Racing told Arvid Lindblad to push on his last lap with medium. However, they struggled to take off one of his tyre in the pit. Alex Dunne attacked Durksen for P13 and with Martì with cold tyres. The Rodin Motorsport driver took P11. A three way battle between Goethe, Lindblad and Dunne began on track. In the meantime, Jak Crawford wanted to attack Staněk but locked his tyre, giving the Czech driver the opportunity to keep his P4. Dino Beganovic and Arvid Lindblad were battling hard on track for multiple laps, with the British driver in front.
In the end, Leonardo Fornaroli won despite his penalty, with a 7.5 seconds gap to his teammate behind. Jak Crawford is the last driver on the podium. It’s the first victory in a Feature Race for the Italian driver, and the first double podium of the season for Invicta Racing.