Pourchaire wins Bahrain FIA F2 Feature Race

Theo Pourchaire won a fascinating and eventful race in Bahrain, already taking the lead in the FIA F2 championship.

Despite a Safety Car at the end of the race and pressure from Liam Lawson and Jüri Vips, Théo Pourchaire won his first victory of the season.

Theo Pourchaire won an incident-filled first feature race of the Formula 2 season in Bahrain ahead of Liam Lawson and Juri Vips.

ART Grand Prix’s Pourchaire drove a clean race to launch his second-year championship bid, helped by a slow pitstop for early leader Vips.

Bahrain FIA F2 Feature Race

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Theo Pourchaire	ART	1h01m54.454s
2	Liam Lawson	Carlin	+0.925s
3	Juri Vips	Hitech	+1.714s
4	Ralph Boschung	Campos	+3.863s
5	Marcus Armstrong	Hitech	+4.606s
6	Felipe Drugovich	Motorsport	+5.722s
7	Logan Sargeant	Carlin	+6.539s
8	Roy Nissany	DAMS	+7.256s
9	Jake Hughes	Van Amersfoort	+8.008s
10	Jack Doohan	Virtuosi	+8.854s
11	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz	+10.074s
12	Marino Sato	Virtuosi	+11.353s
13	Amaury Cordeel	Van Amersfoort	+12.704s
14	Jehan Daruvala	Prema	+14.361s
15	Cem Bolukbasi	Charouz	+15.965s
16	Ayumu Iwasa	DAMS	+31.170s
17	Olli Caldwell	Campos	+1 lap
Ret	Calan Williams	Trident
Ret	Dennis Hauger	Prema
Ret	Richard Verschoor	Trident
Ret	Clement Novalak	MP
Ret	Frederik Vesti	ART

Vips and Campos Racing’s Ralph Boschung had two rocket starts to move up to first and second place from third and fifth on the grid respectively, pushing front-row starters Jack Doohan and Pourchaire back to third and fourth.
Marcus Armstrong, Calan Williams and Olli Caldwell gained several places on the opening lap to get in the top 10 after starting on the soft tyre, as did Ayumu Iwasa from last on the grid.

On lap two, ART’s Frederik Vesti was spun round at turn one and stalled, bringing the safety car out. At the restart, Doohan and Pourchaire overtook Boschung, who would lose two more places in the following laps.

The soft tyre runners continued to make up places and the first pit-stops didn’t come until around lap 13, when drivers on the hard rubber pitted for softs. These included Vips, but an issue with his front-left tyre led to him losing more than 10 seconds and giving up the net race lead.

Pourchaire became the new race leader once all the drivers had pitted, Iwasa the last to do so after making it all the way up into the lead.

Lawson took second place while Doohan touched the rear of Pourchaire after exiting the pits and had to pit a second time for a new front wing.

With just five laps to go, a high-tension battle involving bewteen five cars ended up with Enzo Fittipaldi touching and spining Trident’s Richard Verchoor around at turn one.

The safety car was deployed and several drivers decided to pit, led by Prema’s Dennis Hauger and Williams who left their pitboxes before the tyre change was completed, resulting in both losing their front-left tyre as they joined the fast lane.

The race resumed with two laps left, although just one more lap would be completed as the race hit the one-hour time limit.

Pourchaire held on to the lead to win ahead of Lawson and Vips, who had recovered part of the ground lost in the pits.

Both Boschung and Armstrong took advantage of a struggling MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich – who made a particularly early switch from hard to soft rubber – to finish fourth and fifth respectively.

Logan Sargeant, Roy Nissany and Jake Hughes were next, with Doohan benefitting from the late chaos to claim the final point in 10th after making four pitstops.

Pourchaire wins Bahrain FIA F2 Feature Race Pourchaire wins Bahrain FIA F2 Feature Race

You might also like

Verschoor wins Bahrain FIA F2 Sprint Race

Also make sure you follow us on social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram  for all the latest updates between issues.

Pourchaire wins Bahrain FIA F2 Feature Race Pourchaire wins Bahrain FIA F2 Feature Race