Oliver Bearman made it two wins out of two in Formula 2 at Azerbaijan with a controlling drive in the feature race.
The Ferrari junior driver dominated F2’s weekend at the Baku City Circuit, winning both the sprint and feature races as well as claiming pole position and topping practice.
He crossed the line 2.8 seconds ahead of Enzo Fittipaldi in today’s feature race, with Theo Pourchaire joining them on the podium.
Following his stunning victory from ninth on the grid in yesterday’s sprint race, Bearman lined up alongside Fittipaldi on the front-row. Pourchaire and Frederik Vesti were then immediately behind.
The Prema driver enjoyed an excellent start and thwarted a late lunge from Fittipaldi at turn one to keep the lead. That was all Fittipaldi could offer in the fight for first, as he was immediately in defence mode on lap two.
Pourchaire started his attack on the Carlin driver down the start-finish straight, and completed his hunt around the outside into turn three. The ART driver had strong pace and soon after he was applying pressure to the leader.
With DRS down the start-finish straight, Pourchaire overtook Bearman down the inside of turn one on lap three. However, Bearman returned the favour the following lap with a similar manoeuvre to re-take the lead.
Bearman then extended his advantage to 1.1 seconds, before both drivers pitted on lap nine. They came in immediately after Brad Benavides brought the yellow flags out when he skidded into the run-off area at turn 15.
Benavides made another mistake moments later at turn four on lap 10. After locking up, he used the run-off area then hit a wall as he tried to turn his PHM car around.
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A Virtual Safety Car period was called, and ended the following lap. At the restart, Bearman was in third but held the net lead behind Isack Hadjar and Ayumu Iwasa who were yet to pit.
Following the drama of the sprint race, which included 10 retirements, this was a much calmer affair. However, one driver picked up a penalty. Already running outside of the points on lap 14, Jehan Daruvala went off at turn one but re-joined in the immediate path of Zane Maloney, which earned the MP driver a 10-second time penalty for returning to the track unsafely.
Further ahead, Bearman extended his advantage over Pourchaire to over two seconds. The ART driver had dropped so far back, he came under pressure from Fiittpaldi on lap 24. Eyeing up his opportunity, Fittipaldi started the…
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