Aron wins after Bortoleto penalty title battle shrinks

Paul Aron secured his first Formula 2 victory of the season, benefiting from a penalty for on-the-road winner Gabriel Bortoleto in the Qatar feature race.

Having started from pole, Aron was unable to topple his Invicta rival on the track, but a virtual safety car-related penalty enabled him to leapfrog onto the top step of the podium.

The penalty for Bortoleto also allowed Isack Hadjar to claim second place, moving him to within half a point of the Brazilian at the top of the standings with one weekend remaining.

Bortoleto wasted no time in moving to the front of the pack at the start, taking Aron’s wheelspinning Hitech machine on the run to Turn 1 while the Estonian battled to remain in second with Dino Beganovic (DAMS) and Victor Martins (ART) applying pressure.

Aron kept within DRS range of Bortoleto (Invicta) for a handful of laps, but once he dropped over a second behind the margin increased at a rate of knots and climbed to over six seconds by lap seven when the Estonian was among the first stoppers to ditch his medium rubber.

But as Bortoleto pulled across to the pit entry the following lap, the virtual safety car was displayed to allow for the recovery of Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Prema car following contact with Richard Verschoor in the pitlane – for which the latter received a 10s penalty for an unsafe release.

With mandatory stops not permitted to be completed under the VSC, Bortoleto bailed from his entering the pitlane, but his movement came too late and he went the wrong side of a marker bollard, resulting in a five-second penalty.

With the drivers who had yet to ditch their original starting hard tyres now at the front, led by sprint race winner Oliver Bearman (Prema), Bortoleto went on the attack. His efforts to pass Hadjar’s Campos team-matei Pepe Marti on the outside of Turn 1 resulted in being edged off the track and into the brake markers – an incident not deemed worthy of a penalty.

The action was paused once more after less than a lap with Jak Crawford tapping Rafael Villagomez (Van Amersfoort Racing) into a spin at Turn 6, resulting in the retirement of both drivers.

The following restart on lap 17 was equally frenetic, with Bearman running wide at the final corner, which saw Joshua Durksen illegally slide his AIX entry through into a temporary lead. But with the positions swiftly reversed, the stewards took no further action.

As the race settled into a rhythm, Bortoleto, Aron and Hadjar began to progress through the drivers yet to stop, with the former closing on his third-placed team-mate Kush Maini with seven laps to go.

As the clock ticked down to five minutes, Bortoleto completed a brave Turn 1 pass on the yet-to-stop Durksen and gave himself the opportunity to establish the gap needed to negate his penalty. He immediately pulled a 1.7s margin on Aron – crucially denying the new Alpine Formula 1 reserve any further DRS use.

Pitting with two minutes remaining on the clock as the hoped-for safety car failed to materialise, Bearman conceded the lead to Bortoleto, who had a 3.8s margin to third-placed Hadjar.

Despite a late battle with fellow Red Bull junior Oliver Goethe, Hadjar finished within 5s of Bortoleto to put himself into second place.

Goethe took fifth ahead of Beganovic, while Christian Mansell completed the top six. Bearman could only finish 12th after his late stop.

The F2 season will conclude in Abu Dhabi next week, with only Bortoleto and Hadjar now in mathematical contention to take the title.

F2 Qatar Feature race results