Official F1 Journal Formula 2 Saturday Round Up- Monza

Sprint Race Round Up

It was the Penultimate Sprint race of the season and the pressure was on Fredrik Vesti and his Prema car to reduce the gap to Championship leader Theo Pourchaire, and starting in 3rd with the reverse top 10 format meant he had a good shot at doing so with his rival starting in 10th but on pole for the Sunday Feature race. 
Lights out and Boschung locks up in to turn 1 destroying his tyres at the first corner in a sprint race were pit stops are race killers. Vesti over took Vershoor for the lead in an important move this early in the race and Victor Martins squeezed Bearman into turn 1, these 2 have a chequered past together in 2023. Championship leader Theo Pourchaire had contact  at turn 1 hitting Crawford after taking to much curb at the first corner. Bearman over took Fittipaldi into Ascari and Cordeal spins at the same place after contact with Maloney bringing out the Safety car with Vesti in the lead.

When racing resumed, Mertins had made his way upto 4th, Pourchaire was in 6th with Bearma ahead in 5th. 
lap 12 and after a brilliant move by Victor Martins Virtuosi car on Vershoor for 2nd, Roy Nissany spun at the Ascari chicane bringing  out the 2nd Safety car of the day. 
Lap 16 the safety car was in and Vesti didnt have to defend into turn 1 as 2nd place man Martins was under pressure from Vershoor who just couldnt get the move done. Daruvela found the grael on the restart and Crawford gained a position on Pourchaire for 4th.  and by this time Martins was after Vesti at a rate of knots but time was running out for the frenchman to make his move.
hauger made a great save after gong onto the gravel and leclerc put a mighty move on Stanek around the Parabolic turn(not somewhere you see a lot of overtakes).
$ laps to go and the pressure was on Vesti to hold onto the lead with a rapid Martins never etting the gap get over 0.7 of a second right till the last lap, with the Prema team telling their man 'all out nothing on the table' to push him onto the win.Luckily for Vesti in the chase for 1st Martins had been caught by 3rd place man Richard Vershoor who had a good look at the Alpine Academy man but couldnt get the move done with the Trio finishing Vest i 1st, Martins 2nd Vershoor 3rd. Championship leader Pouchaire finished 4th retaining the championship lead and Jack Doohan who has just seemed nowwhere this Monza weekend finished 11th on the road but after hadjar and Crawford took time penalties ended up 9th.
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F2 Sprint Result

1 VES     2 MAR
3 VER     4 POU
5 MAI      6 BEA
7 LEC     8 STA
9 DOO    10 NOV
11 HAD   12 CRA
13 MAL    14 JCO
15 FIT      16 MAS
17 DAR    18 BOS 
DNF's
IWA, NIS, ACO

Joanna Blackmore 
Writer @ F1Journal