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Baku, 5 June 2021: Hitech Grand Prix’s Jüri Vips kept his nose clean in a chaotic Sprint Race 2 in Baku to take his first-ever win, in Formula 2’s 100th race, putting on a controlled performance among multiple stoppages and six retirements, to finish ahead of Charouz Racing System’s David Beckmann and Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala.

After the race, ace Indian driver Daruvala said: “Finally, P3 it is. I had a really good opening lap. getting myself upto P4 from P7. The race was eventful from then on with the safety cars… Happy with today & looking to build on it for the Feature Race tomorrow. Big thanks to Carlin Racing for the car.” Jehan is now sixth in the standings with 47 points.

Jehan at post-race press conference:

FIA Formula 2: Jehan coming to you, that was a race full of pressure and you came through in P3, talk us through it?

Jehan Daruvala: I think it was an eventful race, I had a really good start and was very aggressive on the first lap and even on the safety car restarts. That’s where I made up my positions. I didn’t quite have the pace of Jüri, I think I struggled but I managed to switch the tyres on after all the stoppages. Once I got into the rhythm it felt alright. But as David said earlier, because of the headwind Jüri couldn’t pull away and David was also getting a tow, so the DRS was less effective than I thought it would be with the headwind. I think Jüri was basically pushing the wind for everyone. I tried my best, honestly, I know that if I lost DRS, I would be under pressure, so I pushed the whole way. Definitely there is stuff for me to improve, hopefully I can look at the data because Dan came from the back into the points. I think if I work tonight, I can be back on the podium tomorrow.

FIA Formula 2: You said a moment ago, you lacked a bit of pace in Sprint Race 1 clearly, you’ve made some improvements already, where did they come from and how much better was the car this afternoon?

Daruvala: I think the car was even good in Race 1, but I lacked confidence with the stoppages. As David mentioned with the F2 cars it’s hard to warm the breaks up after the restarts so I think it’s a confidence thing more than anything. Once I get into the rhythm, I feel alright. There’s still a couple of corners where if I improve, I’ll have more chances over overtaking in the race. Like I said, I’ll work hard tonight and if improve on those bits I can be back up here tomorrow.

FIA Formula 2: Jehan finally from me, how satisfying was is to bounce back after quite a difficult Monaco weekend for you?

Daruvala: It was a difficult weekend in Monaco, obviously I didn’t score any points. Sometimes you need to put a weekend like that behind you, but if you do that you don’t learn so I still did everything I could after Monaco to understand where I could improve because we were coming to another street track. All in all, I’ve scored good points in these first two races so I’d like to do the same tomorrow.

Kick-start for pre-season favourites

Baku is proving to be somewhat of a kick-starter for pre-season title favourites in F2, with Vips joining Robert Shwartzman in taking a maiden win of the season, the duo both bouncing back after disappointing starts to the year.

It was far from plain sailing though, as the Estonian had to work hard for the win. Starting from third, the Hitech driver survived two Safety Car restarts while working his way past Bent Viscaal and David Beckmann.

Despite putting up a good fight, Charouz rookie Beckmann had to settle for second ahead of Daruvala, while reverse polesitter Viscaal dropped down to fourth.

Shwarztman followed up his maiden win with fifth ahead of Dan Ticktum, who recovered from an opening-lap crash to take sixth. Liam Lawson made up 13 places to seventh, with Oscar Piasti taking the final points’ place.

AS IT HAPPENED

After a frantic start to the first sprint race, the majority of the field were just hoping to get through the opening two corners unscathed, but that wasn’t the case, with several incidents off the line. Guanyu Zhou and Ticktum locked-up and spun at the first corner, shortly before Ralph Boschung was caught by Théo Pourchaire.

Having kept his nose clean inside of the opening two corners, Beckmann threw his Charouz around the outside of reverse polesitter Viscaal at Turn 3, going wheel to wheel with the Trident, before braking daringly late at Turn 4 and coming out inches ahead of the Dutchman in first.

The Charouz got his move done just in time, as a Safety Car was then required to clean up the Turn 1 incidents. Ticktum and Pourchaire had dropped down the field, but both managed to get going again. Zhou and Boschung weren’t as lucky, with both forced to retire from the race, along with Lirim Zendeli, the MP Motorsport driver having gone wide at Turn 2.

Beckmann aced his restart when the Safety Car returned to the pits, but Viscaal lost another position, falling to third behind Vips. Further back, Pourchaire’s race went from the bad to worse, with his team spotting damage to his front wing and calling him into the pits for a change.

The Safety Car wasn’t back in the pitlane for long, as Roy Nissany struck the back of Richard Verschoor and dumped the Dutchman’s MP Motorsport into the wall.

After several more laps under Safety Car conditions, Beckmann nailed another restart, while Viscaal attempted to reclaim second from Vips, but the Trident ran wide and dropped down to fifth, behind Daruvala and Marcus Armstrong.

Yet again, there was drama further back when racing resumed, as Felipe Drugovich caught Christian Lundgaard and spun the ART Grand Prix into the wall at Turn 1. Armstrong’s DAMS ended up in the wall as well, suffering from a case of cold tyres as he attempted to pass Viscaal.

Only a Virtual Safety Car was required on this occasion, but six retirements and three separate stoppages had given the order an almighty shake-up. Ticktum was back up in sixth, despite dropping to last after his opening lap crash, while Lawson was up to eighth, having started in 20th.

The latest race restart didn’t go as smoothly for Beckmann, the German just about clung on to first but had Vips all over his rear wing. The Estonian waited patiently for DRS down the main straight and decisively lunged down the side of the Charouz for the race lead.

All of that action came inside of a manic 10 laps, but action cooled from there, with the field wary of taking too many risks, given the incidents they’d already seen. However, having already made up 12 places from 20th, Lawson wasn’t opposed to taking a few more risks and dove down the side of Piastri to snatch seventh.

Almost everyone else seemed to be happy to stick where they were though. On course for his first points in fourth, Viscaal was keeping third-placed Daruvala in his sights, hoping the Carlin made a mistake.

That mistake never came and Daruvala held on to the final podium spot as they crossed the line. In front of them, Vips crossed the chequered flag unopposed as well, beating Beckmann by 3.2s.

THE CHAMPIONSHIP VIEW

Finishing outside of the points, Guanyu Zhou retains his place at the top of the Drivers’ Championship on 78 points, but Piastri has moved into second, tied on 55 points with Pourchaire, but ahead of countback. Dan Ticktum is fourth with 54 points, ahead of Shwarztman who is fifth with 51 points.

UNI-Virtuosi remain at the top of the Teams’ Championship with 107 points, ahead of PREMA on 106 and Carlin on 101. Hitech Grand Prix are fourth with 80 points and ART Grand Prix fifth with 71 points.

Baku (Azerbaijan), 5th June, 2021 :  Robert Shwartzman produced a controlled performance around the streets of Baku for his first win of the year, bouncing back from a difficult start to the season to kickstart his title challenge, beating out Dan Ticktum by 5s, with Guanyu Zhou taking third place.

Ace Indian racer Jehan Daruvala of Carlin team, who started on P2, finished fourth fetching valuable points. He will start P7 in the reverse grid for the second sprint race later today. `”In Race 1, it took me time to get into a rhythm and get comfortable but nonetheless managed to get solid points. Looking forward to the next race, where I’ll be starting 7th,” said Jehan after the race.

A title favourite heading into the campaign, Shwartzman’s sophomore season hadn’t gone to plan in the opening two rounds, with the Russian taking zero podiums and suffering from two retirements, but the PREMA man was always insistent that improvements were around the corner.

Starting from reverse grid pole, Shwartzman began to deliver on that promise, with the Russian’s victory never once looking in doubt, despite a commanding charge through the field from street circuit expert Dan Ticktum, who was on the back of a Sprint Race 2 victory in Monaco.

Lining up in sixth, the two-time Macau Grand Prix winner picked off the first four in front of him with relative ease, but came unstuck against Shwartzman and was unable to bridge a 5s gap to the leader.

Guanyu Zhou retained his place at the top of the Drivers’ Championship with a fourth podium of the year, while Jehan Daruvala clung onto fourth, despite late pressure from Théo Pourchaire, who had recovered from a tricky start to take fifth.

AS IT HAPPENED

After a disappointing Qualifying, Shwartzman said he was confident his team would find their pace overnight and they appeared to have achieved that when the lights went out, with the Russian bolting off the line and pulling off into the distance ahead of Jehan Daruvala and Guanyu Zhou.

Not that the PREMA driver was given a chance to build on his getaway, with drama at the back of the field. Neither HWA RACELAB made it through the second turn, with Jack Aitken spinning at the start and Alessio Deledda running wide.

Contact between Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri, after a tap from Felipe Drugovich, resulted in a further two retirements and a Safety Car. Drugovich escaped unscathed but was handed a 10s-time penalty for causing the collision.

Taking the field right up to the start/finish line, Shwartzman aced the restart with Daruvala and Zhou in tow. The sole change to the top 10 coming from Jüri Vips, who took advantage of Pourchaire’s struggle to warm-up his tyres and snuck ahead for P7.

Ticktum had been building momentum since the restart and threw his Carlin ahead of Ralph Boschung for fifth at the first turn, before making a second move on Marcus Armstrong at the same place for fourth a lap later. A few places back, Pourchaire had gotten his tyres up to temperature and regained seventh from Vips.

Picking up the pace, Zhou attempted to evade the rapid clutches of Ticktum by making a move on Daruvala, the UNI-Virtuosi racer eking ahead for second. But Ticktum made light work of Daruvala and continued to harry down Zhou, who was lapping half a second slower than the Carlin and had been unable to bridge the gap to Shwartzman.

In the end, the British racer’s move on Zhou looked all too easy, the Carlin sliding ahead for his fourth overtake and almost instantly building up a gap of five-tenths. Despite Ticktum’s pace, Shwartzman proved to be an overtake too far for the Briton, with the PREMA having built up a sturdy 5s buffer.

There were still moves to be made further back, with Pourchaire’s confidence rapidly increasing. The ART Grand Prix driver first made a move on Boschung, before squeezing past Armstrong at Turn 1 to take fifth as well. Boschung responded by following the Frenchman through for sixth.

Finishing eighth, Vips retained the final points place at the line ahead of David Beckmann, while Bent Viscaal was promoted to tenth following Drugovich’s time penalty.

KEY QUOTE – ROBERT SHWARTZMAN (PREMA RACING)

“My first time in Baku and I’ve taken the top step, so I’m really happy. The pace was really good so a big thanks to the team. With this sort of pace, we just need to improve our results in the other two races. Let’s keep pushing and we will see where we end up.”

THE CHAMPIONSHIP VIEW

Zhou retains his place at the top of the Drivers’ Championship, extending his points’ tally to 78 points, with Pourchaire behind him on 55. Despite his DNF, Piastri is in third on 42 points, ahead of Tick on 50. Shwartzman is up to fifth with 45 points.

UNI-Virtuosi lead the Teams’ Championship on 207 points, 10 ahead of PREMA and 20 ahead of Carlin. ART Grand Prix are fourth on 71 points and Hitech Grand Prix fifth with 63 points.

Action from FIA Formula 2 – Baku, Azerbaijan – Sprint Race 2 will be LIVE on EUROSPORT and EUROSPORT HD from 19:30 Hrs (07:30 pm IST) onwards on Saturday, 5^th June 2021.

Baku, 4 June 2021: Hitech Grand Prix cemented their place as the team to beat in Baku with a one-two in Qualifying, as Liam Lawson stormed to a first pole position in Formula 2, ahead of teammate Jüri Vips. Lapping at 1:54.217, Lawson finished just over a tenth faster than his fellow Red Bull junior, with Oscar Piastri a further 0.153s back.

Ace Indian driver Jehan Daruvala had a decent lap but could qualify only 9th overall as the top-11 drivers were within one second… ‘“Though it was a decent lap, there is always room for improvement. As I will be starting P2 tomorrow, looking forward to maximising the result,” said Daruvala.

Finishing 10th overall, Robert Shwartzman will start ahead of Jehan Daruvala in Saturday’s reverse grid Sprint Race 1, which takes place at 11.25am local time.

Roy Nissany was forced to watch Qualifying from the side-lines after the DAMS driver crashed out of Free Practice. The short turnaround before the start of the session meaning that the team were unable to mend his DAMS in time.

Marcus Armstrong set the early pace before being usurped by Dan Ticktum and then Théo Pourchaire inside of the opening 10 minutes, with the latter slicing the quickest lap down to 1:55.455.

The trio traded first between them as they headed towards the midway point and it was Armstrong who was top of the class as the cars headed back to the pits for fresh supersofts, the DAMS driver setting the fastest time in Baku so far, with 1:55.057.

Ticktum – who had dropped down to P6 – questioned whether it would be smart to get back out onto the track early, wary of red flags, and his team obliged, sending him out at the front of the queue with 13 minutes on the clock.

Hailing his earlier return to the track as “spot on,” Ticktum improved, but not as much as he would have liked, with the carlin driver settling for P5, ahead of Armstrong. Despite holding provisional pole after the first runs, the DAMS driver wasn’t able to keep up with the pace in the second half of the session.

Rookie duo Piastri and Théo Pourchaire had snuck into third and fourth during the second runs but it was an all-Hitech shoot-out for pole, as Lawson and Vips set off on one final set of push laps in a league of their own.

Vips had to watch on as his teammate took pole, with Lawson shaving his time down to 1:54.217, while the Estonian racer failed to improve, losing four-tenths in the middle sector.

Second fastest in Free Practice, Ralph Boschung finished Qualifying in seventh, ahead of Guanyu Zhou, who was one of the final drivers to return from the pits in the second half of the session.