Iwasa takes over at Paul Ricard and wins race 2 of F2. Sargeant drops out and Drugovich is 4th

Ayumu Iwasa won the main race of the French F2 round, held this Sunday (24), at Paul Ricard. The Japanese Dams driver started very well and took the lead on the first lap, losing it only during the pit-stop rounds.

In the end he crossed the finish line more than 8s ahead of Théo Pourchaire, who redeemed himself with second place after the punishment that made him miss the podium in the sprint race. Frederik Vesti finished third.

Felipe Drugovich used his characteristic tire care to gain fourth position with four laps to go, leaving Jack Doohan behind. And it was very close that the championship leader did not reach the podium, but he was one lap short of overtaking Vesti.

Liam Lawson was sixth, with Jehan Darvuala seventh. Clement Novalak came in eighth, with Roy Nissany and Enzo Fittipaldi - in a great recovery race - closing the group of ten scoring points.

The start had a small delay of ten minutes in relation to the initial schedule. On the grid, Drugovich, who inherited third place in the sprint race after Pourchaire was punished 5s, was sixth, while Enzo Fittipaldi was only 19th, also due to a punishment. - also due to punishment, but unlike the Frenchman, the Brazilian lost five grid positions for Sunday's race.

The heat in Paul Ricard was unrelenting, and at 9:45 a.m. local time, the thermometers were already reading 29°C. On the grid, however, what we saw were the main names in the fight for the title varying in tire tactics: pole-position Sargeant, currently second-place, appeared with soft compounds, while Drugovich bet on hard compounds in the first leg of the race. Pourchaire, third in the World Championship, was also on red tires.

When the red lights went out, Iwasa started better and left Sargeant behind. But the Japanese driver was not counting on an even better start from Doohan, then fourth on the grid, who put the car on the outside and managed to surprise the Dams driver. The Australian took the lead, but soon the Japanese driver overtook him and went ahead.

Behind, Drugovich kept the sixth position, but before the end of the first lap he was overtaken by Jüri Vips, dropping to seventh. And Fittipaldi gained two positions, finishing 17th.

The safety car was called out on the second lap. Marcus Armstrong and Dennis Hauger touched, and the Hitech representative took the worst of it, getting in the middle of the track and forcing the safety car to intervene. Hauger had a broken front wing and had to go to the pits. Marino Sato also stopped and abandoned the race after being involved in a collision with Drugovich.

At the end of lap 5, the race was restarted. Iwasa decided to accelerate well before the finish line and caught Doohan on the backfoot. Drugovich dropped to eighth, being overtaken by Liam Lawson. Sargeant and Pourchaire were third and fifth, respectively. Fighting for eighth, Jehan Daruvala made a great move on Roy Nissany.

In the eighth round, Drugovich's teammate Novalak went into the pits early to change tires, giving the impression that he might have suffered a problem beyond wear, since he had hard compounds and opted for the soft ones. Nissany, Beckmann and Novalak were also making their pit stops immediately after, already giving indications that the tires would not hold for long.

On lap 11, Pourchaire, on soft tires, entered the pits, followed by Vips. Drugovich, on hard tires, remained on track, taking sixth position. The ART Frenchman was back in 12th, with Vips - who had problems changing the left rear wheel - in 15th.

Roberto Mehri, who had a remarkable performance in Austria, reaching third place with Campos, had problems and had to retire. Then the race direction gave Nissany a 5s penalty for going off the track and gaining an advantage.

Sargeant stopped on lap 13, and the pit-stop was a complete disaster. For some reason, the American simply could not get out. After two consecutive wins, the Carlin driver left the French GP in a melancholy way.

Drugovich, on hard tires, came in at turn 14, following the stopping trend of those who started on white tires - which, in practice, didn't have that much of an advantage over the soft ones in terms of performance.

Pourchaire managed to overtake Doohan in the pits, putting himself as a potential candidate for victory at that point. He was virtually eighth, but first on the list of those who had stopped for the mandatory tire change.

Another round of pits, and Iwasa managed to get back on track ahead of Pourchaire. When the positions were re-established on lap 19, the top-10 was as follows: Iwasa, Pourchaire, Doohan, Vesti, Cordeel - the only one who had not stopped - Drugovich, Liam Lawson, Nissany, Richard Verschoor and Daruvala.

That was when Doohan went all out for Pourchaire, attacked the zebra with more appetite than usual, and almost put his and the Frenchman's race at risk. Meanwhile, with the soft tires responding much better, Drugovich, who had been gaining positions after the pit-stop, took fifth place.

Iwasa was running a lonely race, more than 5s ahead of Pourchaire and Vesti. The broadcast then showed a battle for seventh between Nissany, Verschoor, and Daruvala. The Dams driver was defending well against Verschoor's attacks, and the dispute allowed the Indian to attack more effectively and take eighth place. The seventh place came next for the Prema driver.

On lap 24, Fittipaldi was fighting to take the penalty with good overtaking moves. At that point he was 12th, after leaving Hauger behind. He would still gain two more positions, managing to take Charouz once again to the points after lining up only 19th.

Iwasa had absolutely nothing to do with the battle for positions, and he would go on to cross the finish line ahead of everyone else for the first time this season.

F2 2022, French GP, Paul Ricard, race 2, final result