Jack Doohan knew how to tame Silverstone's wet track like no one else in the Formula 2 sprint race in England
The Formula 2 sprint race of the weekend at the British GP, held on Saturday afternoon (2) at Silverstone, started on a wet track. The drivers bet on starting on wet tires, even though the rain itself had stopped. From then on, the race had a very difficult stretch of track, and then a drier one. The one who knew how to balance it out best to win was Jack Doohan.
In fact, Doohan ran over. The Australian driver started in fourth place and quickly showed he had the fastest car on the wet track and on blue stripe tires. Even under pressure from Ayumu Iwasa, he attacked Jüri Vips until he took third place.
After that, overtaking Jehan Daruvala and Enzo Fittipaldi was less difficult. By the end of the seventh lap, he was already leading, never to be threatened even remotely again. It is Doohan's first win in the category.
With Doohan, Iwasa was in tow and finished with second place. Fittipaldi even led the race for a brief moment after passing Daruvala, but finished even third. It is his second podium of the season.
The championship's vice-leader, Théo Pourchaire, finished fourth, while the leader, Felipe Drugovich, was fifth. Frederik Vesti, Logan Sargeant, and Daruvala also scored points.
On Sunday, the start of the main Formula 2 race of the weekend is scheduled for 6:05 am (GMT-3).
Check out how the sprint race went:
If Formula 1 qualifying, closed an hour earlier, caught a lot of rain and a completely wet track, Formula 2 already had a different situation for the start. The rain stopped when the clock struck 1 pm (Brasília time, 5 pm local time), but the conditions were still very wet. The drivers decided to start on wet tires.
For safety, the race direction called for two presentation laps and a moving start, instead of the traditional stopped start. Jehan Daruvala defended his position with ease, while Enzo Fittipaldi held on to second position.
Fighting for position? The first real fight came for eighth place. Frederik Vesti dared and attacked the championship leader, Felipe Drugovich, at the exit of the Wellington straight. Drugovich played hard, but his rival was very fast and, as the competition leader, didn't want to risk too much for eighth place.
Further back, Jake Hughes was overtaking to take 13th place from Dennis Hauger. Vesti was speeding up to challenge Théo Pourchaire as well. In the top positions, the situation was everybody threatening and being threatened, practically. Jüri Vips was closing in on Fittipaldi, but he could sense Jack Doohan coming. Doohan, in turn, had Ayumu Iwasa in his sights. Iwasa had the advantage over Liam Lawson, but Pourchaire was bothering Liam and suffering from Vesti.
Especially the fight for third place between Vips, Doohan and Iwasa was fierce. The three of them would share corners, but at least in the first four of 20 laps, nothing changed. It was exactly at the fifth turn that Doohan went on the attack in the middle of the Maggots and Becketts sequence to take third place.
At the end of the lap, a change in the lead. Fittipaldi went over Daruvala on the last corner before the pit lane and rounded the front to take the lead and take control of the race.
Vesti was able to leave Pourchaire behind, while Drugovich was closing in on the Frenchman, his great rival for the title so far. Iwasa finally got the better of Vips to take fourth place. The race was quite lively at this point.
After losing first place, Daruvala's pace dropped. A lap later, Doohan and Iwasa attacked and easily left the Indian behind. Doohan was flying in the race and quickly came to threaten and overtook Fittipaldi - who passed outside the corner. He was the new race leader.
So much movement made it almost impossible to understand everything that was happening. Lawson was involved in a touch when threatened by Vesti, something that broke the wing of the Red Bull Academy driver's car. Vesti lost the position to Pourchaire, but Lawson had to go into the pits. Pourcharei still benefited from a mistake by Vips to gain fifth place.
After ten laps and half the race, Doohan was leading with 3s6 ahead of Iwasa, who had passed Fittipaldi, now third. Daruvala, Pourchaire, Vips, Vesti, and Drugovich scored, while Logan Sargeant and Hauger rounded out the top-10.
Doohan was heading for a quiet victory up front, but behind, the fight continued. Vesti and Drugovich passed Vips, the Brazilian went on a beautiful move, while the Estonian was still punished with time for disrespecting the track limits. Sargeant thus moved up to eighth place.
The thirst for time was also dropping, because the drivers would have to go to the end of the race on the rain tires they started with, but the track already presented much better conditions. The wear and tear was clear.
From then on, gaining positions was a matter of skill. Marcus Armstrong did this against Hauger, taking 10th place. Drugovich also left Vesti behind and climbed to sixth. Pourchaire was closing in on Fittipaldi for the podium.
But Pourchaire didn't pass. Drugovich, however, left one more behind: Daruvala. The Indian's pace was destroyed by the tire conditions in the last two laps. Besides Felipe, Jehan also fell to Vesti and Sargeant.