Race report
FIA F2 Barcelona
F2 Spain: Crawford takes commanding win, Correa charges back to podium
Jak Crawford claims breakthrough Formula 2 victory while Juan Manuel Correa fights back to secure an emotional podium finish
Sam Hall
Edited: Jun 23, 2024, 8:15 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Jak Crawford became the tenth different winner of the Formula 2 season after executing an undercut strategy on championship leader Paul Aron in the Spanish feature race.
Crawford proved his pace across the Spanish weekend to take his first win of the season from Franco Colapinto and Juan Manuel Correa, with the latter likely to steal the headlines after making the alternate strategy work to claim a first podium since making his F2 return – this after being stripped of a podium on Saturday.
It was a composed start for polesitter Aron who led Crawford and Colapinto into the first corner, but there was chaos behind as Saturday’s sprint race winner, Victor Martins, got tangled with Dennis Hauger and caused the safety car to be called into early action.
Hauger, who started on the soft tyre, had made a rocket start and climbed six positions before he climbed across the Turn 2 kerbs and bounced his MP Motorsport entry into the side of Martins’ ART.
While behind the safety car, Roman Stanek (Trident) reported that Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Prema) was trailing dry ice that was “flying into my eyes”, something that contravenes the regulations. The pair were together on the track after both being forced to start from the pitlane – Antonelli failing to launch from the grid for the formation lap after qualifying in fifth.
With tyre wear extremely high at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, AIX driver Joshua Durksen began to make moves through the front order with his hard rubber, climbing past Isack Hadjar for sixth on lap eight.
And it was at the end of that tour that those on soft tyres began to bail for the harder compound, most notably Crawford from second in a bid to undercut Aron. From fifth, Invicta pitted Gabriel Bortoleto on lap 10.
Top two Aron and Colapinto stopped on lap 11 with both drivers enduring slow stops. As the pair returned to the track, Crawford found himself sandwiched between the pair but, with his tyres warm already, he quickly found a way through to gain the net race lead.
As the pit stop shake up played out, the Virtual Safety Car was briefly deployed to allow for the recovery of Taylor Barnard’s AIX entry which had stopped near to the pit entry.
Having begun to put pressure on Crawford, Aron’s chance of victory disintegrated on Lap 15 when a snap of oversteer saw him lose control and slide into the gravel at the final corner. His return to the track was then quickly under investigation by the stewards after he cut across the front of Zak O’Sullivan. No further action was the quickly given decision.
Lap 17 then saw disaster for Durksen, who was leading the race on the hard tyre but was yet to stop. With a gap of 28 seconds to the lead drivers that had stopped, the AIX driver had looked likely to achieve a top five finish.
Following this latest virtual safety car period, Aron battled his way past O’Sullivan while Bortoleto made a move on Colapinto for a net second place – both using the tow into Turn 1. These positions were again reversed a handful of laps later, with Colapinto appearing more willing to push his tyres harder than the Invicta driver at that point.
With 10 laps to go, leader Juan Manuel Correra (DAMS) stopped to rid himself of his hard tyres and fit the softs, dropping him to sixth after the remaining drivers pitted.
Aron’s recovery drive continued at this point, as he used DRS to pass Bortoleto for what would be a net third place.
But this position came under threat from an unlikely source as Correa made light work of Hadjar and Bortoleto. Such was the concern over his pace that Colapinto – six seconds up the road – was warned to speed up to negate the danger.
On lap 33, with five remaining, Correa made his move on an utterly defenceless Aron into Turn 1 to put himself onto the podium, an outcome that he will view as retribution for Saturday, when his result was taken away through a post-race track limits penalty.
At the start of the final lap, the Invicta pit wall watched on in horror as team-mates Bortoleto and Kush Maini collided at Turn 1, although both were able to reach the chequered flag in sixth and seventh, albeit with damage.
Crawford took the flag by 1.4s from Colapinto, while Correa’s charge ended shortly after his pass on Aron with the tyre compounds levelling on pace.
Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info
1
-
4
Main Information Additional Data
1
-
2
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval km/h Pits Points Retirement Bonus 1 J. Crawford DAMS Lucas Oil 7 37
-
2 F. Colapinto MP Motorsport 12 37
+1.400
1.4
1.400 3 J. Correa DAMS Lucas Oil 8 37
+5.800
5.8
4.400 4
P. Aron Hitech Pulse-Eight
17 37
+11.400
11.4
5.600 5 I. Hadjar Campos Racing 20 37
+14.700
14.7
3.300 6 K. Maini Invicta Racing 9 37
+19.300
19.3
4.600 7
G. Bortoleto Invicta Racing
10 37
+20.400
20.4
1.100 8 Z. Maloney Rodin Motorsport 5 37
+22.600
22.6
2.200 9 A. Cordeel Hitech Pulse-Eight 16 37
+24.400
24.4
1.800 10
P. Martí Campos Racing
21 37
+24.900
24.9
0.500 11 E. Fittipaldi Van Amersfoort Racing 14 37
+29.100
29.1
4.200 12
A. Kimi Prema Powerteam
4 37
+35.500
35.5
6.400 13 R. Miyata Rodin Motorsport 6 37
+35.900
35.9
0.400 14 O. Bearman Prema Powerteam 3 37
+37.400
37.4
1.500 15 Z. O'Sullivan ART Grand Prix 2 37
+45.000
45.0
7.600 16 R. Villagomez Van Amersfoort Racing 15 37
+47.200
47.2
2.200 17 R. Staněk Trident 23 37
+1'03.000
1'03.0
15.800 dnf R. Verschoor Trident 22 35
2 laps
Retirement dnf
J. Duerksen PHM AIX Racing
24 16
21 laps
Retirement dnf
T. Barnard PHM AIX Racing
25 11
26 laps
Retirement dnf V. Martins ART Grand Prix 1 36
Retirement dnf D. Hauger MP Motorsport 11 36
Retirement View full results
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Correa loses F2 podium in myriad of post-race penalties
Next article Correa: F2 podium return “surreal” on Hubert anniversary
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Sam Hall
Who is Franco Colapinto, Alpine's newest F1 driver?
Formula 1
Formula 1
Who is Franco Colapinto, Alpine's newest F1 driver?
The former F1 junior looking to rejuvenate his career in Japan
Super Formula
Super Formula
The former F1 junior looking to rejuvenate his career in Japan
How Williams’ 2024 campaign was dictated by its early heavy car and late crashes
Formula 1
Formula 1
How Williams’ 2024 campaign was dictated by its early heavy car and late crashes
Latest news
Ricky Stenhouse explains his side of Michael McDowell conflict
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
3 h
Ricky Stenhouse explains his side of Michael McDowell conflict
Barnes: Why IndyCar’s updated licensing system fails its own integrity test
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 4 h
Barnes: Why IndyCar’s updated licensing system fails its own integrity test
Why NASCAR is not penalizing Stenhouse, McDowell for post-race theatrics
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Charlotte II
5 h
Why NASCAR is not penalizing Stenhouse, McDowell for post-race theatrics
Dale Jr. explains why he doesn't use 'Earnhardt' in his signature
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup 6 h
Dale Jr. explains why he doesn't use 'Earnhardt' in his signature
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe