Prema’s Oliver Bearman created a perfect weekend for himself in Baku as he clinched his first Feature race victory after yesterday’s Sprint race win, catapulting himself right into Formula 2 title contention.
Polesitter and Sprint race winner Bearman got away well from the line, cutting off Carlin’s Enzo Fittipaldi and holding position at the start, with the entire field getting through the first lap without any issues or incidents.
ART’s Victor Martins was a big gainer, moving up five positions, as championship leader Ayumu Iwasa suffered a poor getaway on the alternative strategy, dropping down four places to 21st position on the medium compound.
Theo Pourchaire overtook Fittipaldi once DRS was enabled and then managed to overtake Bearman for the race lead a lap later, with the Ferrari junior retaking first place the following lap and quickly opening a gap to the Frenchman.
Frederik Vesti and Jehan Daruvula were the first of the front runners to make their mandatory pitstops, making the switch to the medium tyres on lap seven, with Fittipaldi, Martins, and Jak Crawford all following the next lap.
Both Bearman and Pourchaire found themselves pitting on lap nine, with Dennis Hauger, Zane Maloney and Richard Verschoor following the front two runners in, briefly handing the race lead to Campos’ Kush Maini before the Indian driver also bolted into the pits for fresh medium tyres.
Hitech’s Isack Hadjar inherited the race lead as PHM’s Brad Benavides stalled, activating the Virtual Safety Car, with Iwasa following behind in second.
The Japanese driver was handed a five-second penalty for a Virtual Safety Car infringement, however, which dropped him back down to P14 after his late-race pitstop.
Daruvala overshot into Turn 1 while trying to overtake Verschoor, with the MP driver dropping back to P13 and being handed a ten-second time penalty for unsafely rejoining the track, eventually dropping him down to P15 and out of the points at the end of the race.
Net-race leader Bearman, meanwhile, slowly managed to open a gap back up to Pourchaire, breaking free of the Frenchman’s DRS while slowly closing the gap to Hadjar and Iwasa, who were both still running at the front on their ageing medium tyres.
In the closing stages of the race, Fittipaldi started applying pressure onto Pourchaire, overtaking the ART on Lap 24 to clinch second place position, while both Hadjar and Iwasa finally bolted into the pits for a fresh set of supersoft tyres.
A few places further down, Hauger and Maini were engaged in a battle that lasted for several laps and concluded with the Campos driver winning out.
Fittipaldi was tangled up in a fight with Pourchaire all the way until the finish but he managed to hold onto second place.
But nobody was a threat to Bearman in the final stages of the race, with the young Briton making it a perfect weekend with almost maximum points, throwing the 17-year-old right back into the Drivers’ Championship fight.
Pourchaire retakes the championship lead after Iwasa failed to score while Vesti jumps to second, leaving Iwasa in third. Meanwhile, Bearman’s perfect weekend has launched him into fourth, ahead of both Maini and Hauger.
Martins finished fourth, just over a second off the podium, followed by Vesti, Maini, Hauger, Hadjar, Verschoor, and Crawford.
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