Close to Perfect Weekend for Drugovich after Feature Race Triumph

MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich has completed a double winning race weekend in round four of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season after winning Sunday’s Feature Race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and extending his lead at the top of the championship.

The win marks MP Motorsport’s fourth successive win at the Spanish circuit after Drugovich’s victory in Saturday’s Sprint Race as well as the Dutch racing outfit taking both victories in 2020, the last time F2 raced at the circuit.

Virtuosi Racing’s Jack Doohan finished in second place after starting on pole position with ART Grand Prix’s Frederik Vesti completing the top three on his first visit to the podium in Formula 2. Following on from his podium in the Sprint Race, Logan Sargeant had another strong result in fourth place.

When the five lights went out, Vesti got the jump on the Hitech Grand Prix car of Jüri Vips to take second place at turn one. Cem Bölükbasi and Liam Lawson also had lightening starts as both drivers made up seven positions on the first lap.

After a promising qualifying, PREMA Racing’s Jehan Daruvala became the first and only casualty of the race as he suffered a power failure which left him stranded at turn seven of the track and brought out the safety car.

The first round of pit stops came after the clean restart on lap six with most of the soft-to-hard runners pitting within the first few laps. However, MP Motorsport left the decision up to Drugovich to pit when he felt the tyres drop off. This was ultimately the decision which won the Brazilian driver the race.

After starting tenth on the grid, Drugovich found himself in the net position of third as he finally pitted on lap sixteen. The extra long stint on the softer tyre really benefitted him which he spoke about in his post-race interview,

“Its just amazing. I for sure didn’t expect that but I think the softs worked perfectly for us. I had minimal deg[redation] from the beginning so I could pull a good gap and I’m just so, so happy”.

It should be noted that Drugovich, Vesti and Théo Pourchaire are all being investigated for pit-lane infringements.

With the other teams taking note of the strong pace on the soft tyres, the drivers on the alternate strategy benefitted massively towards the end of the race. Clément Novalak and Enzo Fittipaldi showed this through their overtaking manoeuvres on the main straight on Pourchaire and Liam Lawson in the last few laps.

POS	NO.	NAME	NAT.	TEAM	TIME
1	12	Felipe Drugovich	BRA	MP Motorsport	1:02:14.874
2	3	Jack Doohan	AUS	Virtuosi Racing	+5.630
3	9	Frederik Vesti	DNK	ART Grand Prix	+23.169
4	6	Logan Sargeant	USA	Carlin	+24.720
5	12	Clément Novalak	FRA	MP Motorsport	+25.060
6	24	Enzo Fittipaldi	BRA	Charouz Racing System	+31.430
7	7	Marcus Armstrong	NZL	Hitech Grand Prix	+32.199
8	10	Théo Pourchaire	FRA	ART Grand Prix	+35.607
9	5	Liam Lawson	NZL	Carlin	+37.174
10	16	Roy Nissany	ISR	DAMS	+37.275
11	21	Calan Williams	AUS	Trident	+38.754
12	17	Ayumu Iwasa	JPN	DAMS	+54.848
13	1	Dennis Hauger	NOR	PREMA Racing	+55.049
14	14	Olli Caldwell	GBR	Campos Racing	+56.548
15	25	Amaury Cordeel	BEL	Van Amersfoort Racing	+59.627
16	24	Jake Hughes	GBR	Van Amersfoort Racing	+1:03.535
17	8	Jüri Vips	EST	Hitech Grand Prix	+1:14.803
18	20	Richard Verschoor	NLD	Trident	+1:20.062
19	4	Marino Sato	JPN	Virtuosi Racing	+1:30.518
20	23	Cem Bölükbasi	TUR	Charouz Racing System	+1:33.835
21	2	Jehan Daruvala	IND	PREMA Racing	DNF

F2: Barcelona – Feature Race Classification

The two wins for Drugovich this weekend means he takes a hefty twenty-six point advantage in the championship ahead of Pourchaire with the next round in Monaco taking place next weekend. With Pourchaire dominating the week-end with a pole position and Feature Race win in the last season, the Frenchman will be keen to gain back some ground on his championship rival.