Rafa Camara took a commanding Formula 2 victory in the Belgian Grand Prix Feature Race, which saw Inthraphuvasak and Tsolov on the podium.
Rafael Camara was starting on pole with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak alongside him. Camara was slow off the line, dropping into second in the opening corners.
Dino Beganovic failed to make it off the line as Gabriele Mini charged down the inside of the field into the first turn, making contact with Roman Bilinski. Mini was able to continue, but he sustained damage to his MP Motorsport car.
Ollie Goethe also picked up damage with Ritomo Miyata knocking into the back of him, which left him slow-moving and unable to get going.
Early Safety Car
A Safety Car was brought out as a result of the Lap 1 chaos.
Under the Safety Car restart, Nikola Tsolov looked to take second place from Camara. The duo went wheel to wheel into the first corner as Camara left no room for the Red Bull Junior, forcing him to run through the gravel and slip back through the order to fifth,
Mini picked up a five-second penalty for the incident in Lap 1, leaving Mini’s weekend going from bad to worse.
On Lap 5, Camara used his DRS to breeze past Inthraphuvasak on the Kemmel Straight. Duerksen put in the fastest lap and moved up into third.
Further back, Tsolov looked to have picked up damage in his run through the gravel, the Red Bull junior struggling for pace as he fell further to eighth place.
Duerksen made it past Inthraphuvasak, making it an Invicta 1-2 in the opening stages of the race.
On Lap 6, Camara was called into the pits, with his super soft tyres falling apart. Before he made it to the end of the lap, Duerksen was able to get past his teammate, who didn’t fight the move.
All of the Championship contenders were on the same strategy, filing into the pits to change their super soft tyres for mediums.
Other than Mini, who remained on medium tyres after being out of position in qualifying. He still sat at the back of the field after his Lap 1 incident.
Laurens Van Hoepen had a massive crash at Turn 8 and managed to get out of his smoking TRIDENT on Lap 9. Van Hoepen was unscathed, and a Safety Car was brought out to clean up the damage on the track.
Red Flag for Van Hoepen
Due to the barrier and debris damage, a Red Flag was raised swiftly afterwards.
Under the Red Flag conditions, drivers can change tyres; however, it will not count as their mandatory pit stop. It also offered teams the opportunity to fix and damage picked up in the race, with teams allowed to replace parts with exact replacements.
The grid was lined up in the pit lane, ready to go back out onto the track. Race Control decided on a rolling start for the restart. Due to the Red Flag, the lap times had been swapped with time left. With 21 minutes left in the Race.
Duerksen led the field to green with Nicolas Varrone and John Bennett in the top three. Rafa Camara used the tow from those in front to move into ninth place, closing on the back of Noel Leon.
Dunne was close behind Camara, with Tsolov and Mini not far behind the pack.
Emerson Fittipaldi spun and ran through the gravel, which brought out another Safety Car. All the drivers who were yet to complete their mandatory stops, putting Camara out front, with Dunne and Leon completing the top three.
Championship leader Tsolov and Mini sat fifth and sixth.
Tsolov made it to fourth with just over ten minutes left. However, the Red Bull junior had picked up two track limit violations, which loomed over him.
Mini was 0.7 seconds behind Inthraphuvasak and closing. The Italian driver’s race was a huge recovery after the Safety Car and incidents throughout.
Track limits
Mini looked to gain another place after Leon received a five-second penalty for track limits, with DRS activated with 8 minutes left.
Dunne lost DRS to Camara, who built his gap to over a second. Tsolov also had dropped behind Leon and lost DRS, which put him in the front wing of Inthraphuvasak, who took fourth from Tsolov.
Tsolov and Dunne both received black-and-white flags for track limits. Dunne’s penalty was a five-second penalty, which would push Inthraphuvasak and Tsolov into podium places.
However, the Red Bull junior had Mini closing in on the back of the Campos. Inthraphuvasak made it past Leon on the road, putting him in second with the penalties applied.
With one final lap, Camara led the field by a comfortable 2.9 seconds. Eyes were on Dunne and Leon, who needed perfect sectors in the last lap to save them places as they faced their penalties.
As Camara crossed the line, Dunne managed to just get ahead of Mini but finished behind the Championship leader.
Inthraphuvasak took second on the road with Tsolov in third. Dunne and Mini completed the top five with Villagomez and Leon sixth and seventh. Colton Herta took an important point in eighth with his teammate in ninth. Mari Boya took the final points position.
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