Jack Doohan has won his second Sprint race of the FIA Formula 2 Championship season after a strong performance in the Sprint race in Hungary.
The Aussie youngster fell to second off the line only to storm back to the lead and control the race.
Juri Vips was second after capitalising on an early mistake from Enzo Fittipaldi who fell to third after leading into the first corner.
Pole-sitter Doohan bogged down at the start, losing the lead into the first corner while contact in the pack saw a number of cars skittled.
Fittipaldi then locked up at Turn 3 to allow Dooham reclaim top spot, Vips also finding a way through to move up to second.
Soon after, the Safety Car was deployed for the stranded Dennis Hauger, the Red Bull driver a casualty of the Turn 1 clash.
Click here to find out how.
Logan Sargeant was also involved in the early scuffle, the American touring around to the pits where he retired.
Doohan was handed control of the field when the Safety Car withdrew at the end of Lap 2.
The Virtuosi driver maintained a comfortable advantage at the restart, opening almost a full second advantage as Vips had Fittipaldi and Felipe Drugovich for company in the early stages.
That gap only extended for Doohan who was 1.8s clear at the completion of Lap 5.
A fastest lap from Vips saw the Estonian ease the gap to the race leader down to just over a second as they started Lap 10.
Fittipaldi wasn’t allowing him an easy time, however, while Drugovich was only just over a second further back in fourth.
Doohan was managing the situation, allowing Vips to close only to react and keep himself outside of DRS range.
While the front of the race had stabilised, a scrap developed between Jehan Daruvala, Marcus Armstrong, and Liam Lawson over sixth.
That culminated in contact between Daruvala and Armstrong at Turn 1 on Lap 19, the pair coming together after running wheel-to-wheel around the right-hander in an incident noted by officials.
A penalty was forthcoming for Daruvala for causing a collision soon after, effectively ending his race.
Doohan weathered the sort from Vips, extending his lead once again in the closing laps.
The 19-year-old saw the flag by a comfortable 5.2 seconds over Vips, with Fittipaldi rounding out the podium.
Drugovich maintained fourth while title rival Theo Pourchaire was ninth after 28 laps of racing.
Vesti finished fifth ahead of the New Zealand duo of Lawson and Armstrong, the latter shadowed by Ayumu Iwasa across the line.
Calan Williams rose through the field well to narrowly miss out on a spot in the top 10, ending Saturday’s encounter in 11th.
The result was Doohan’s second win of the season, having tasted victory in the Sprint race in Silverstone.
He’ll start 10th for Sunday’s Feature race, Ayumu Iwasa on pole for the race which gets underway at 19:35 AEST.
Discussion about this post