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Jack Doohan’s F2 title hopes were dealt a blow in a chaotic Dutch feature race in which the two main championship protagonists also emerged pointless following their own remarkable incidents.
With no points scored for any of the top four in the standings across the weekend at Zandvoort, after the sprint race was abandoned due to the treacherous conditions without a racing lap being conducted, it is a case of ‘as you were’ going into the final two rounds – Italy next weekend and Abu Dhabi at the end of November.
The events of the feature race meant the top three had an unfamiliar look to it, with Trident’s Clément Novalak scoring his maiden F2 win of any description on his 55th start followed by Rodin Carlin’s Zane Maloney and Hitech’s Jak Crawford.
After winning the two feature races before the recent summer break in Hungary and Belgium, Doohan would have felt reasonably confident of making it a hat-trick in starting from fifth on the grid.
Doohan, though, spun out of the race at the final corner on the opening lap which had commenced with a rolling start due to the slippery conditions at the seaside circuit, bringing out the safety car.
Doohan’s incident had followed two others after the start, with second-in-the-championship Frederik Vesti spinning at Turn 1 to fall from third to 19th.
From sixth and seventh on the grid, Oliver Bearman and Juan Manuel Correa tangled, sending both into the gravel. The latter was given a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision.
DAMS driver Ayumu Iwasa, another with title aspirations going into the race due to him lying third in the standings, out-braked himself into Turn 1 on the restart, sending both him and Campos’ Kush Maini into the gravel, earning a 10-second penalty.
After the round of pit stops, championship leader Théo Pourchaire crashed out on his out-lap on fresh tyres, sparking another safety car.
Vesti’s hopes of taking advantage of Pourchaire’s incident were wrecked on his own out-lap as he lost both of his rear wheels.
When the race again resumed, Bearman was hit again into Turn 3, this time by Victor Martins, sending the PREMA driver into the barriers and earning the Frenchman a 10-second time penalty that relegated him from fifth to ninth at the chequered flag.
Due to the two safety cars, the race ran to its full one-hour allocated duration rather than the 40 laps, with Novalak doing enough to hold on for victory from a lowly 13th on the grid.
Of the top six in the standings going into the race, only fifth-placed Martins scored points given the incidents involving Doohan, Pourchaire, Vesti, Iwasa, and Bearman.
Pourchaire remains 12 points clear of Vesti, with Iwasa a further 22 points back, and Doohan remaining 38 behind the Frenchman.
