What a start from Maloney!!! Bortoleto didnt have a great start from pole and quickly dropped back as Maloney came from 3rd and just took off like a rocket. 20 metres from the line his nose was ahead of Hadjar and he went up the inside of turn 1 and into the lead, as Hadjar was tapped from behind by a struggling Bortaleto, making him spin and get stranded in the middle of turn 1 as the whole pack came around him, almost everyone made it past him except Fittipaldi who crashed into the the stranded Campos. 
O'Sullivan was up into 2nd by turn 4 and Marti also passed Bortoleto at the same corner. Aron and Colapinto both gained 6 places on the first lap as a Safety car was brought out to recover the cars of Hadjar and Fittipaldi. Bearman was forced to pit with a car issue but came back out and carried on seemingly problem free. 

Lap 5 the track went green and Maloney began to disappear in to the distance, Marti & Crawford passed Bortoleto who was struggling again on the restart. Marti was straight on the back of Hauger beginning a rapid decent down the pack for Hauger, Crawford was next to over take him with Bortoleto finding his speed finally and also passing Hauger on lap 8. Marti continued his push forward passing O'Sullivan for 2nd and Bortoleto got passed Hauger into turn 1 for 5th, quickly making a gap to Hauger and the line of cars forming behind him.
Lap 10 Martins despite making gains from the start was stuck in 11th behind Aron as we saw Mercedes academy driver Antonelli pass Stanek for 13th in his Prema, with Barnard next up the road.

Rodin did a stella job when Maloney pit on  lap 19 sending him back out still in the provisional lead after all the cars had made their stops as yellow flags were being flown for Victor Martins who despite making the most of his early stop by putting in some rapid laps, sadly lost all drive into turn 4 unable to get the car into any gear bringing out a Safety car to recover the ART. Hauger got past Verschoor on track just as the Safety car was called pushing him up to 4th. 
2 Drivers who felt the benefit of the Safety car were the 2 struggling Prema cars who found themselves in 9th(BEA) & 10th(ANT), with fellow team mates Maini & Bortaleto right behind them on far fresher rubber. 

Lap 22 the track went green and Maloney was far enough ahead of O'Sullivan by turn 1 he was safe from attack, Bearman, Antonelli, Maini and Bortoleto all passed Miyata very quickly, beginning some great inter team back and forth between both Prema and Invicta cars who swapped position back and forth for the next couple of laps before the 2 Invicta cars got past Bearman who continued to tumble down the times. Antonelli was doing a valiant job in his flawed Prema car, over taking Verschoor (for 7th), followed by Maini and Bortoleto, as further forward Aron got past Hauger into 4th. 
Lap 25 Maloney had a 2.2 second lead over O'Sullivan who was being hunted down by Marti in 3rd. The 2 Invicta cars caught and passed Antonelli with 7 laps to go continuing their push forward together making the most of their team mate relationship. 
Lap 27 Marti made a mega move on O'Sullivan up the inside of turn 1 and unfortunately for O'Sullivan the same thing would happen on the next lap with Paul Aron pushing him down to 4th. 

Hauger and Colapinto had a great battle in the closing laps before Colapinto ultimately passed Hauger for 5th place. 
With 3 laps to go Bortoleto was done waiting behind his team mate as the 2 approached the rear of Hauger, Bortoleto attempted a move at turn 4, it didn't pay off, but just 2 corners later Maini went deep on the brakes allowing Bortoleto through into 6th to attack Hauger. Which he did just 1 lap later pushing him up to 6th with Colapinto next in the Brazilians sights( Maini followed Bortoleto through). It did not take him long and on the last lap he caught and passed Colapinto, almost passing O'Sullivan on the start finish line with a photo finish. Congratulations to  Antonelli who scored a point on his Feature race debut, which was made only more impressive by the challenges facing the Prema car so far in 2024.  

1 MAL                   2 JMA +4.621
3 ARO +11.781     4 OSU +12.523
5 BOR +12.591     6 COL + 13.609
7 MAI +14.719       8 HAU +16.002
9 MIY +13.27       10 ANT +20.405
11 DUR +24.035  12 VIL + 29.532
13 STA +31.193   14 VER +33.702
15 BEA +51.135   16 BAR +58.999
17 MAR DNF        18 CRA DNF
19 JCO DNF         20 COR DNF
​21 HAD DNF         22 FIT DNF

Off the start it was Crawford who lead the pack into turn 1 after a great start from pole, Barnard did not have such a good start from 2nd and was quickly overtaken by ART driver Victor Martins, followed  by his team mate O'Sullivan, pushing Barnard down the order. Bortoleto (2023 F3 Champion) also had a tough start and dropped down to 9th, both drivers poor luck helping Zane Maloney move forward from his 8th place start and just as Bortoleto and Barnard started to swap places for 8th and 9th a Virtual Safety car was triggered by the spinning car of Cordeel who needed to be recovered from the run off at turn 4.
Lap 3 the track went green and the racing was back underway, Martins was straight on the back of Crawford but couldnt get past as Maloney started his attack on Fittipaldi, who he passed quickly and rapidly chased down O'Sullivan in 3rd  who he also over took with a great move in to turn 1.

Further back Hadjar had also over taken a struggling Fittipaldi, by diving up the inside into turn 4, a popular over taking spot for the F2 and 3.
Lap 9 Colapinto was handed a 10 second penalty for starting in the wrong grid slot, after Dunne stalled and was forced to start from the pitlane Colapinto was confused returning to the grid and pulled into the wrong slot.
The fight between Bortaleto and Barnard for 10th was still alive and the 2 continued to swap back and forth until Bortaleto's hard tyres switched on and his fight forward began leaving Barnard behind on the edge of the points.
Prema were having another terrible day with Bearman and Antonelli down in 18th & 19th before they pit both cars in a bid to gain an advantage on fresh tyres if a Safety car was to happen sadly for them there was not one. 

Hauger also had begun to push forward passing Fittipaldi into turn 1 as the Soft tyre runners struggled, the best of their rubber gone. Victor Martins ART was one of the biggest casualties of this making it fairly easy for Hadjar to catch and pass him for 3rd, While Marti over took Aron for 5th and set his sights on Martins 4th place. 
 Barnard retired at the end of lap 17 with an engine or gear box issue as Marti caught and passed Martins who just couldn't fight back on dying rubber and would continue to fall down the standing as the race drew to a close ending up down in 11th and out of the points by the chequered flag.

3 laps to go and Maloney had a 4 second lead over 2nd place man Crawford, and as Aron passed Martins for 5th Bortaleto found his pace in the closing laps passing Miyata, O'Sullivan and Hauger to go up to 6th almost catching Paul Aron at the line on the final lap. O'Sullivan followed Bortaleto past Hauger meaning he finished a respectable 7th on his F2 debut never really getting the best from the hard tyre but beating team mate Martins as the team split the tyre strategy's. Fittipaldi was forced to pit before rejoining leaving him well down the order and pointless at the season opener.
It was a brilliant race by Maloney who really showed his class and ability to race to the front and manage the race from the front perfectly to bring home his first win in Formula 2, the first win of 2024 and Rodin 1st win since Fittipaldi won the 2023 Belgian Sprint race. 
The new chassis the F2 grid is running this year really has achieved what the FIA set out to when they began designing the new generation of Formula 2 car, the cars were fundamentally faster but racing closer and it made for great viewing. 
​The anticipation for tomorrows race only amplified by the brilliant Sprint race today.

1 MAL                    2 CRA + 5.490
3 JMA +7.57          4 HAD +9.783
5 ARO +18.18        6 BOR +18.320
7 OSU +20.135      8 HAU +21.032
9 MIY +21.490      10 VER +21.839 
11 MAR +23.840   12 JCO +26.833
13 MAI +27.246    14 ANT + 30.260
15 DUR +35.257   16 BEA +36.247
17 FIT + 56.183     18 COL +64.819
19 VIL +81.558       20 BAR DNF
​21 STA DNF           22 COR DNF

It was a slow start to the session with only 4 cars lapping for the 1st 10 minutes with  Hauger, Colapinto(who moved up to F2 from F3 this year), Marti & Hadjar the only cars to set times till the rest of the field joined them with 31 minutes to go in the session. 
It was very calm, consistent running for all until new Prema driver Miyata lost the rear out of Turn 1 and watched his rear end go round on himself after getting a bit aggressive on the accelerator but carried on without any damage to the car(maybe just the tyres).

2024 Rookies 

As the yellow flags flew Bearman and Antonelli completed their laps unaffected by the incident in sector 1 putting themselves 5th & 8th. 
F3 2023 champion and Mclaren backed Brazilian driver Bortoleto put his car upto 4th in his first session in Formula 2, while F2 veteran Zane Maloney went top of the times. 
Zane had a great pre season test, finishing the 1st day of wet running 2nd and topping the 2nd & 3rd days of testing.

Durksen(rookie) brought out a brief yellow flag going wide at turn 13 and with 15 to go we started to see the top 10 times change rapidly, Martins went 7th, Fittipaldi was up to 6th, Bortoleto was pushed down to 9th and Championship favorite Bearman was down in 18th.
Miyata put his car 2nd fastest, as Hadjar went fastest with 10 minutes to go and we started to see a more frantic pace about all the cars trying to get their qualifying simulations in and practice starts at the pit exit. F2 veteran Bearman stalled his car at the pit exit losing time while the Prema team came to restart his car so he could complete the session. Aron went deep at turn 4 after a rear lock up but manged to carry on despite losing that time to track limits. 
In the closing minutes we started to see alot more mistake, Cordeal went to deep into turn 14 and just managed to keep his car out of the wall.

1 HAD      2 COL
3 MAL      4 MIY
5 HAU      6 CRA
7 MART    8 O'SU
9 FIT        10 BOR
11 VMA    12 MAI
13 JCO    14 ARO  
15  ANT    16 VER
17 DUR    18 BAR
19 BEA     20 ACO
21STA       22 VIL

The session began with all but the 2 Campos drivers, Hadjar & Marti going straight out. F2 is notorious for yellow and Red flags in a Qualifying session so its important to get a banker lap in before you go for an absolute pace lap and today was no different as we saw almost everyone going out to set a time early.
The first push pace laps were so close, Hauger crossed the line first with Fittipaldi(paying tribute to great uncle Wilson Fittipaldi who passed away this week on his helmet) slotted into 2nd, Bearman could only manage 9th as he crossed the line, Maloney went 3rd fastest till he was beaten by 2023 F3 champion Bortoleto  

Jak Crawford breifly brought out a yellow flag after a spin at turn 1 but managed to keep the car going and carry on but rejoined the track at turn 2 unsafely was under investigation for it.
Campos chose to run their cars out of sequence to everyone else and their drivers Hadjar and Marti put there cars 1st and 2nd before pitting to join the others for the final runs of the session.

The final flying runs began with 6 minutes on the clock, Fittipaldi is the first man to begin his lap in his Van Ammerfoort car, Hauger went purple in sector 1 in his hunt for pole, Maloney was purple in sector 2 as Fittipaldi goes top, and was then beaten by Maloney and Hauger, Miyata then takes 3rd from him as well. ​

1 MAI              2 BOR
3 HAD             4 MAL
5 HAU             6 MIY
7 O'SUL           8 FIT
9  VMA           10 BAR
11  CRA          12 PMA
13 ARO           14 COR
15 VIL             16 COL
17 VER           18 ANT
19 BEA           20 COR
​21 STA           22 DUR