Roundup of the fourth round of 2022 F2 season as Felipe Drugovich dominated in Spain.
Having lost the championship lead in Imola last month to Theo Pourchaire by just two points, Drugovich came into this round looking to bounce back at a circuit where his team – MP Motorsport did the double on F2’s last visit in 2020.
Hot track temperatures however provided the entire field with a huge test of tyre management as we round up all the action from Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Practice
ART GP’s Theo Pourchaire and Frederik Vesti were first out on track but it was Van Amersfoort Racing’s Jake Hughes who set the benchmark lap time of 1m 49.892, which he quickly lowered to 1m 32.968 but his teammate – Amaury Cordeel went top with 1m 32.609.
Campos’ Olli Caldwell caused a red flag just nine minutes into the session after he spun out at Turn Nine, following loss of the rear-end of his Campos on entry to the corner.
The session resumed 10 minutes later as Pourchaire twice stalled as he exited his pit box but the red flag was back out four minutes later, after Marcus Armstrong lost the rear of his Hitech GP car and spun out at Turn Four.
Once the session recommenced six minutes later, Juri Vips went top with 1m 31.919 ahead of Logan Sargeant but was soon displaced by Jack Doohan and Dennis Hauger.
Felipe Drugovich however swiftly displaced Hauger with a session-topping lap time of 1m 30.886 ahead of Jehan Daruvala and Sargeant, as Doohan and Liam Lawson rounded out the top five.
Cem Bolukbasi returned to F2 action after he missed Imola through injury last month and finished 20th fastest, yet slowest out of the 20 drivers who set representative lap times.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 1m 30.886 |
| 2 | Jehan Daruvala | PREMA | + 0.483 |
| 3 | Logan Sargeant | Carlin | + 0.531 |
| 4 | Jack Doohan | Virtuosi | + 0.646 |
| 5 | Liam Lawson | Carlin | + 0.677 |
| 6 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | + 0.709 |
| 7 | Ayumu Iwasa | DAMS | + 0.737 |
| 8 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | + 0.788 |
| 9 | Dennis Hauger | PREMA | + 0.821 |
| 10 | Calan Williams | Trident | + 0.865 |
| 11 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Charouz | + 0.893 |
| 12 | Marino Sato | Virtuosi | + 1.268 |
| 13 | Frederik Vesti | ART GP | + 1.560 |
| 14 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | + 1.572 |
| 15 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | + 1.675 |
| 16 | Amaury Cordeel | VAR | + 1.723 |
| 17 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | + 1.904 |
| 18 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | + 1.997 |
| 19 | Jake Hughes | VAR | + 2.082 |
| 20 | Cem Bolukbasi | Charouz | + 3.746 |
| 21 | Marcus Armstrong | Hitech GP | + 19.623 |
| 22 | Olli Caldwell | Campos | + 22.688 |
Qualifying
Shortly before Qualifying got underway, Campos’ Ralph Boschung announced his withdrawal from the remainder of the weekend due to neck pain.
Pourchaire and Vesti again were first out on track as Lawson proceeded to set the early benchmark lap time of 1m 30.753 but his lap time was deleted, with Sargeant then setting 1m 30.152 as the new benchmark lap time.
Pourchaire and Sato initially displaced Sargeant until Jehan Daruvala posted 1m 29.512 to go fastest in the seventh minute, with the Red Bull junior heading Hughes and Clement Novalak after the opening runs.
Drugovich meanwhile decided to conduct his opening run in the gap as everyone else pitted and went fastest with 1m 29.190 in the 15th minute, only for Daruvala to do a second flier on his opening set of tyres and posted 1m 28.884 to go top.
Doohan was first out for the final runs which paid off as he went fastest in the 26th minute with 1m 28.612, which proved good enough for pole position in the Feature Race ahead of Vips, Vesti, Daruvala, Sargeant, Ayumu Iwasa, Pourchaire, Hughes, Calan Williams and Drugovich.
Drugovich however was hit with a three-place grid penalty for impeding his title rival – Pourchaire during their final flying laps, which saw him lose reverse-pole and started the Sprint Race from fourth behind Williams, Hughes and Pourchaire.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Jack Doohan | Virtuosi | 1m 28.612 |
| 2 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | + 0.023 |
| 3 | Frederik Vesti | ART GP | + 0.240 |
| 4 | Jehan Daruvala | PREMA | + 0.272 |
| 5 | Logan Sargeant | Carlin | + 0.355 |
| 6 | Ayumu Iwasa | DAMS | + 0.365 |
| 7 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | + 0.389 |
| 8 | Jake Hughes | VAR | + 0.455 |
| 9 | Calan Williams | Trident | + 0.552 |
| 10 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | + 0.578 |
| 11 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Charouz | + 0.593 |
| 12 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | + 0.755 |
| 13 | Marcus Armstrong | Hitech GP | + 0.763 |
| 14 | Dennis Hauger | PREMA | + 0.769 |
| 15 | Amaury Cordeel | VAR | + 0.769 |
| 16 | Liam Lawson | Carlin | + 0.876 |
| 17 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | + 0.903 |
| 18 | Olli Caldwell | Campos | + 1.273 |
| 19 | Marino Sato | Virtuosi | + 1.315 |
| 20 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | + 1.604 |
| 21 | Cem Bolukbasi | Charouz | + 1.744 |
| WD | Ralph Boschung | Campos | Injury |
Sprint Race
Reverse-pole sitter, Williams failed to get away on the formation lap after stalling as he left his grid box, which meant that Hughes led the field away at lights out from second, yet he was quickly knocked down to fourth by Drugovich, Iwasa and Sargeant.
Pourchaire meanwhile lost three positions to slip to sixth on the opening lap but was further demoted a lap later to seventh by Vips, whilst Doohan cleared Vesti for eighth on the same lap.
Vips’ race however came to a premature end after he spun on Lap Six after losing the rear of his Hitech GP car into Turn Four, which saw the Safety Car deployed for four laps.
Drugovich comfortably controlled the restart on Lap 10 as everyone unusually chose to preserve tyre life than make risky moves on the restart with many holding position for the next 10 laps.
Up front, Hughes in fourth began to struggle with his tyre degradation and soon fell down the order from Lap 20 in the only noticeable incident in the last seven laps, which culminated in his retirement from the race on Lap 25.
Drugovich meanwhile comfortably took victory and the fastest lap to put him back in the title lead as Iwasa and Sargeant rounded out the podium, ahead of Daruvala, Pourchaire, Doohan, Vesti and Enzo Fittipaldi who rounded out the top eight.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 26 | 44m 12.635 |
| 2 | Ayumu Iwasa | DAMS | 26 | + 2.109 |
| 3 | Logan Sargeant | Carlin | 26 | + 4.165 |
| 4 | Jehan Daruvala | PREMA | 26 | + 8.493 |
| 5 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | 26 | + 9.251 |
| 6 | Jack Doohan | Virtuosi | 26 | + 10.481 |
| 7 | Frederik Vesti | ART GP | 26 | + 16.430 |
| 8 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Charouz | 26 | + 17.256 |
| 9 | Liam Lawson | Carlin | 26 | + 17.705 |
| 10 | Marcus Armstrong | Hitech GP | 26 | + 18.524 |
| 11 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | 26 | + 25.321 |
| 12 | Dennis Hauger | PREMA | 26 | + 25.997 |
| 13 | Olli Caldwell | Campos | 26 | + 26.476 |
| 14 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | 26 | + 29.315 |
| 15 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | 26 | + 31.490 |
| 16 | Calan Williams | Trident | 26 | + 33.781 |
| 17 | Marino Sato | Virtuosi | 26 | + 37.436 |
| 18 | Cem Bolukbasi | Charouz | 26 | + 53.281 |
| 19 | Amaury Cordeel | VAR | 26 | + 65.926 |
| 20 | Jake Hughes | VAR | 24 | Tyre |
| 21 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | 5 | Spin |
Feature Race
At lights out, Doohan led from pole position as Vesti leapfrogged Vips into second whilst Drugovich leapt from 10th on the grid to seventh ahead of his title rival, Pourchaire.
Further down the order, Hauger sent Caldwell spinning out of the final chicane at Turn 14 but the Safety Car was deployed on Lap Three, after Daruvala’s engine suddenly failed out of Turn Five and broke down in middle of Turn Seven.
Iwasa however wasn’t able to avoid hitting the rear-end of his fellow Red Bull junior which dropped him out of contention, as he was forced to pit for a new front nose which didn’t count as part of his mandatory pit stop which is only allowed from Lap Six onwards.
Doohan controlled the restart as everyone held order but Vips was the first frontrunner to pit at the end of Lap Eight, only for a slow pit stop on his front left tyre to rule him out of contention.
Up front, Doohan stayed out until the end of Lap 11 when he decided to pit and conceded the lead to Drugovich, who stayed out on his soft tyres until the conclusion of Lap 17 before he made his stop and re-joined the race in ninth and a net third-place.
Drugovich however quickly began to show his experience as he cleared Vesti on Lap 20 before rapidly reeling in those on the alternate strategy of medium to soft tyres, with the Brazilian and Doohan soon doing battle from Lap 24 after Drugovich passed Armstrong into Turn 10.
Drugovich’s blistering pace however was too much for Doohan to handle as the Aussie conceded the lead into Turn One on Lap 27 and settled for second, albeit 5.630s slower at the checkered flag with Vesti and Sargeant rounding out the top four.
Clement Novalak meanwhile pitted from the lead as the highest-placed alternate runner on Lap 24 to switch to the soft tyres, which enabled him to carve his way through the field from 14th to finish fifth ahead of Fittipaldi and Armstrong who were also on the same strategy.
Pourchaire, Lawson and Roy Nissany rounded out the top ten as Doohan claimed the point for fastest lap.
Drugovich, Vesti and Pourchaire however are under post-race investigations for separate pit-lane infringements.
With victory, Drugovich extended his championship lead from five points to 26 points ahead of Pourchaire as Daruvala retained third, despite the Indian failing to finish this race after his engine failure.
F2 will be back in action next weekend from 26-29 May in Monaco where Pourchaire will look to cut his title deficit to Drugovich.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 37 | 1h 2m 14.874 |
| 2 | Jack Doohan | Virtuosi | 37 | + 5.630 |
| 3 | Frederik Vesti | ART GP | 37 | + 23.169 |
| 4 | Logan Sargeant | Carlin | 37 | + 24.720 |
| 5 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | 37 | + 25.060 |
| 6 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Charouz | 37 | + 31.430 |
| 7 | Marcus Armstrong | Hitech GP | 37 | + 32.199 |
| 8 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | 37 | + 35.607 |
| 9 | Liam Lawson | Carlin | 37 | + 37.174 |
| 10 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | 37 | + 37.275 |
| 11 | Calan Williams | Trident | 37 | + 38.754 |
| 12 | Ayumu Iwasa | DAMS | 37 | + 54.848 |
| 13 | Dennis Hauger | PREMA | 37 | + 55.049 |
| 14 | Olli Caldwell | Campos | 37 | + 56.548 |
| 15 | Amaury Cordeel | VAR | 37 | + 59.627 |
| 16 | Jake Hughes | VAR | 37 | + 63.353 |
| 17 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | 37 | + 74.803 |
| 18 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | 37 | + 80.062 |
| 19 | Marino Sato | Virtuosi | 37 | + 90.518 |
| 20 | Cem Bolukbasi | Charouz | 37 | + 93.835 |
| RET | Jehan Daruvala | PREMA | 2 | Engine |
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