F2 Spain: Crawford takes commanding win, Correa charges back to podium

Jak Crawford became the tenth different winner of the Formula 2 season after executing an undercut strategy on championship leader Paul Aron in the Spanish feature race.

Crawford proved his pace across the Spanish weekend to take his first win of the season from Franco Colapinto and Juan Manuel Correa, with the latter likely to steal the headlines after making the alternate strategy work to claim a first podium since making his F2 return – this after being stripped of a podium on Saturday.

It was a composed start for polesitter Aron who led Crawford and Colapinto into the first corner, but there was chaos behind as Saturday’s sprint race winner, Victor Martins, got tangled with Dennis Hauger and caused the safety car to be called into early action.

Hauger, who started on the soft tyre, had made a rocket start and climbed six positions before he climbed across the Turn 2 kerbs and bounced his MP Motorsport entry into the side of Martins’ ART.

While behind the safety car, Roman Stanek (Trident) reported that Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Prema) was trailing dry ice that was “flying into my eyes”, something that contravenes the regulations. The pair were together on the track after both being forced to start from the pitlane – Antonelli failing to launch from the grid for the formation lap after qualifying in fifth.

With tyre wear extremely high at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, AIX driver Joshua Durksen began to make moves through the front order with his hard rubber, climbing past Isack Hadjar for sixth on lap eight.

And it was at the end of that tour that those on soft tyres began to bail for the harder compound, most notably Crawford from second in a bid to undercut Aron. From fifth, Invicta pitted Gabriel Bortoleto on lap 10.

Top two Aron and Colapinto stopped on lap 11 with both drivers enduring slow stops. As the pair returned to the track, Crawford found himself sandwiched between the pair but, with his tyres warm already, he quickly found a way through to gain the net race lead.

As the pit stop shake up played out, the Virtual Safety Car was briefly deployed to allow for the recovery of Taylor Barnard’s AIX entry which had stopped near to the pit entry.

Having begun to put pressure on Crawford, Aron’s chance of victory disintegrated on Lap 15 when a snap of oversteer saw him lose control and slide into the gravel at the final corner. His return to the track was then quickly under investigation by the stewards after he cut across the front of Zak O’Sullivan. No further action was the quickly given decision.

Lap 17 then saw disaster for Durksen, who was leading the race on the hard tyre but was yet to stop. With a gap of 28 seconds to the lead drivers that had stopped, the AIX driver had looked likely to achieve a top five finish.

Following this latest virtual safety car period, Aron battled his way past O’Sullivan while Bortoleto made a move on Colapinto for a net second place – both using the tow into Turn 1. These positions were again reversed a handful of laps later, with Colapinto appearing more willing to push his tyres harder than the Invicta driver at that point.

With 10 laps to go, leader Juan Manuel Correra (DAMS) stopped to rid himself of his hard tyres and fit the softs, dropping him to sixth after the remaining drivers pitted.

Aron’s recovery drive continued at this point, as he used DRS to pass Bortoleto for what would be a net third place.

But this position came under threat from an unlikely source as Correa made light work of Hadjar and Bortoleto. Such was the concern over his pace that Colapinto – six seconds up the road – was warned to speed up to negate the danger.

On lap 33, with five remaining, Correa made his move on an utterly defenceless Aron into Turn 1 to put himself onto the podium, an outcome that he will view as retribution for Saturday, when his result was taken away through a post-race track limits penalty.

At the start of the final lap, the Invicta pit wall watched on in horror as team-mates Bortoleto and Kush Maini collided at Turn 1, although both were able to reach the chequered flag in sixth and seventh, albeit with damage.

Crawford took the flag by 1.4s from Colapinto, while Correa’s charge ended shortly after his pass on Aron with the tyre compounds levelling on pace.

Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information Additional Data 1  -  2
Cla	Driver	#		Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Pits	Points	Retirement	Bonus
1	J. Crawford DAMS Lucas Oil	7		37	-
2	F. Colapinto MP Motorsport	12		37	+1.400 1.4	1.400
3	J. Correa DAMS Lucas Oil	8		37	+5.800 5.8	4.400
4	P. Aron Hitech Pulse-Eight	17		37	+11.400 11.4	5.600
5	I. Hadjar Campos Racing	20		37	+14.700 14.7	3.300
6	K. Maini Invicta Racing	9		37	+19.300 19.3	4.600
7	G. Bortoleto Invicta Racing	10		37	+20.400 20.4	1.100
8	Z. Maloney Rodin Motorsport	5		37	+22.600 22.6	2.200
9	A. Cordeel Hitech Pulse-Eight	16		37	+24.400 24.4	1.800
10	P. Martí Campos Racing	21		37	+24.900 24.9	0.500
11	E. Fittipaldi Van Amersfoort Racing	14		37	+29.100 29.1	4.200
12	A. Antonelli Prema Powerteam	4		37	+35.500 35.5	6.400
13	R. Miyata Rodin Motorsport	6		37	+35.900 35.9	0.400
14	O. Bearman Prema Powerteam	3		37	+37.400 37.4	1.500
15	Z. O'Sullivan ART Grand Prix	2		37	+45.000 45.0	7.600
16	R. Villagomez Van Amersfoort Racing	15		37	+47.200 47.2	2.200
17	R. Staněk Trident	23		37	+1'03.000 1'03.0	15.800
dnf	R. Verschoor Trident	22		35	2 laps					Retirement
dnf	J. Duerksen PHM AIX Racing	24		16	21 laps					Retirement
dnf	T. Barnard PHM AIX Racing	25		11	26 laps					Retirement
dnf	V. Martins ART Grand Prix	1		36						Retirement
dnf	D. Hauger MP Motorsport	11		36						Retirement
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