Victor Martins cruised to victory in the Formula 2 Feature Race at Silverstone despite a five-second time penalty. Zane Maloney and Theo Pourchaire completed the podium as championship leader Frederik Vesti’s points lead was slashed.
Martins fended off an attack from Ayumu Iwasa to hold the lead at the race start. A fast starting Ollie Bearman jumped from fifth to third before Turn 1.
After a storming drive in yesterday’s Sprint race, Jack Doohan was once again on the charge. The Australian was disgruntled with third on Saturday, and was keen to better that result today.
The Safety Car was deployed on Lap 7 to retrieve Amaury Cordeel’s stricken Virtuosi. This put all those on the alternate strategy on the backfoot as all soft runners were afforded a free stop. Those who started on the hard compound would need to make the tyre last late into the race and hope for a further Safety Car intervention later on.
There was chaos at the restart with three drivers tangling before racing officially resumed. This included Sprint winner and championship leader Frederik Vesti, Dennis Hauger and Roman Stanek. A second Safety Car was deployed . Replays showed that Hauger lost focus coming to the restart, going into the back of Vesti, who then went into the back of Stanek.
Despite a pitstop to repair the damage, Vesti’s race was over when he was forced to retire after sustaining suspension damage in the incident.
The effective leader of the race, Victor Martins, was handed a five second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage in his opening lap defence against Ayumu Iwasa.
A third Safety Car was deployed when the Campos pair of Ralph Boschung and Kush Maini came together at the Club chicane. The incident left both cars stranded and allowed for those on the alternate strategy a chance to pit. So too did some of those on the traditional soft-hard strategy who opted for another set of softs to see out the race.
Faced with a time penalty, Martins began to stretch his legs at the front of the field while Arthur Leclerc, Zane Maloney and Pourchaire fought hard behind for the final podium places.
Leclerc began to fade in the closing stages of the race, losing places to both Pourchaire and Doohan.
Ultimately, Martins was able to build enough of a gap to the chasing Maloney to preserve victory in the Formula 2 Feature Race. Theo Pourchaire returned to the podium in third place.
The result means that Vesti’s championship lead has been cut to just six points over Theo Pourchaire with just five rounds remaining in the 2023 Formula 2 season.
