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SARGEANT WINS F2 RACE AFTER FINISHING FOURTH

By Dan McCarthy

Both Australian’s made the wrong call at the start of the FIA Formula 2 Championship Feature Race in Austria, electing to start on the wet tyres, meanwhile despite crossing the line fourth Logan Sargeant won the race.

While it looked good early both Australians Jack Doohan and Calan Williams sitting line astern comfortably in the points, unfortunately for them the track quickly dried out.

Due to the compulsory pitstop window not until the end of the seventh lap the wet tyre starters had dropped down the field they put the slicks on and then had to try and play catch up, something both Aussies were unable to do.

Doohan was classified as last of the finishers, while Williams fought against many of the title challengers for much of the race, but like the others finished outside of the points, he came home in 15th.

Williams’ Trident teammate Richard Verschoor elected to run on the slicks to start, the highest placed person on the grid to do so.

It appeared a risk at the time, but boy did it pay dividends when the track dried out.

He dominated the race and cruised to victory or so he thought…

On the in lap he came to a stop on the exit of the first turn, he was brought back to the pits by the recovery team and celebrated the win on the podium.

However in the hours after Verschoor was disqualified, the Trident team were unable to provide the required post-race fuel sample for scrutineering.

During post-race scrutineering Car #20 could not provide the 0.8kg of fuel required, with only 31.3 grams extracted from the fuel tank.

This promoted Jehan Daruvala to the win, but he received a post-race drive through penalty, converted to a 20-second penalty in the final classification.

The stewards found that the PREMA Racing team had attempted to dry the track surface at his grid slot ahead of the race commencing, the penalty dropping the Indian to 12th.

As a result, despite starting on the wets, in the drive of his career to date American Logan Sargeant inherited the race victory, he actually crossed the line in fourth.

Roberto Mehri crossed the line third but at the time he was handed a penalty for exceeding track limits and fell to fifth.

With all the penalties ahead, Enzo Fittipaldi is promoted to second and Merhi back up to third.

Reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Dennis Hauger was classified in fourth ahead of Jake Hughes and Olli Caldwell.

Ayumu Iwasa, Juri Vips, Roy Nissany and Kiwi Liam Lawson rounded out the points finishers.

Championship leader Felipe Drugovich finished just outside the points in 11th, however his closest title rival Theo Pourchaire elected to start on wets and finished behind him.

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