An error on the last lap of the race relegated the Argentine driver Franco Colapinto finishes 11th in Formula 2 sprint race which was left in the hands of the British Oliver Bearman and which was held this Saturday at the Red Bull Ring circuit as part of the competition weekend whose main attraction is the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix.
The Williams Academy running back He had achieved fourth place in Friday’s classificationwhich gave him seventh place in the starting line-up, due to the inverted grid system for the top 10, in this short test that covered 28 laps of the 4,318-metre track located in Spielberg, 50 kilometres northwest of Graz.
The 21-year-old from Pilar emerged unscathed from a tangled start and kept his seventh starting position while Bearman, a Prema Racing and Ferrari Academy driver (he already made his Formula 1 debut at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix), escaped ahead.
For several laps, Colapinto (MP Motorsport) neatly endured the siege of Paraguayan Joshua Dürksen (AIX Racing) and On the 11th lap he managed to overtake the British Taylor Barnard (AIX Racing) at Turn 3 of the track and thus jump to sixth place.
There he remained, far from the vanguard platoon, but also with a reassuring light on Dürksen, who had already left Barnard behind. Slowly, the Paraguayan got closer and was less than three tenths behind the Argentine. But the harassment of the Norwegian Dennis Hauger, the other MP Motorsport driver, on Dürksen gave some air to his teammate.
In the final stretch of the race, Colapinto went after the fifth place, which belonged to the Indian Kush Maini (Invicta Racing), but his vehicle no longer had the pace of the first laps. On the last lap, Hauger, who was faster than his teammate, tried to overtake him and The Argentine ended up making a spin that left him in a bitter 11th place.
Without excuses, the Pilar native took responsibility for his mistake once the test was over. “In the end I had no rhythm, I ran out of tires. I was skidding a lot, on the last lap I accelerated too much and the car spun. My bad. And unfortunately we lost points because of that. That’s it, we have to think about (the race) tomorrow.”he explained.
The sprint test was won wire-to-wire by Bearmanfollowed by the Spaniard Josep María Martí (Campos Racing) and the Estonian Paul Aron (Hitech Pulse-Eight), who with the seven points he earned this Saturday increased his lead at the top of the championship: he totals 107 points and surpasses the Frenchman Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing) by 16 and the Barbadian Zane Maloney (Rodin Motorsport) by 32, who did not score in the sprint. Colapinto, meanwhile, was left with 56 points and occupies seventh place in the contest.
The main Formula 2 race in Austria will start on Sunday at 5 and will cover 40 laps. In that test, the Argentine will start fourth behind Hauger, Dürksen and the Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta Racing).
2024-06-29 13:07:34
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