Isack Hadjar penalized, loses his first F2 victory in Melbourne

French driver Isack Hadjar, Campos Racing, was given a ten-second penalty for causing a collision at the start of the race. This collision also involved his teammate Josep María Martí and Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta Racing).

After consulting the concerned drivers and analyzing the race videos, it was established that « Hadjar suddenly changed direction to the right in order to overtake Roman Stanek. According to the stewards, he did not notice that Martí was already partially alongside him. This maneuver forced Martí to also move to the right, leading to contact with Bortoleto and causing a second collision. The race stewards deemed Hadjar primarily responsible, which resulted in him receiving a penalty, surprising for an incident that occurred in the very first seconds of the race start.

« The driver of car 20 explained that he had barely strayed to the left side of the track when he made contact with car 21. He also admitted to not having seen his teammate beside him. » explains the FIA in a statement.

The stewards also detailed their decision: « Video evidence showed that a few seconds after the start of the race, car 20 moved significantly to the right to overtake the car in front of it (car 23) without realizing that car 21 had a significant part of its car next to it. This movement forced car 21 to move slightly to the right to avoid a collision. As a result, car 21 made contact with car 10. A second contact occurred between cars 20 and 21. »

The stewards determined that car 20 was mainly responsible for the collision and decided to impose a penalty of 10 seconds plus 2 penalty points.

As a result of this penalty, Hadjar loses his first victory and drops to sixth position, allowing Roman Stanek (Trident) to take the lead. Dennis Hauger (MP Motorsport) moves up to second place and Kush Maini (Invicta Racing) completes the podium in third place. This ascent also allows Maini to rise to third place in the drivers’ standings, accumulating 33 points after just 5 F2 races this season, with the 6th one taking place tomorrow in Melbourne.

Ollie Berman also suspended

Oliver Bearman, driving for PREMA Racing and having replaced Carlos Sainz in F1 two weeks ago, also received a ten-second penalty for pushing Joshua Duerksen (PHM AIX Racing) off the track. The stewards, after hearing testimonies from the drivers and reviewing video evidence, found that Bearman, although he drove in a controlled manner, did not leave enough space for Duerksen at the exit of turn 4.

« Approaching turn 4, car 3 tried to overtake car 24 on the inside. Video evidence shows that car 3 was alongside car 24 at the entry, apex, and exit of turn 4. After careful consideration, the stewards determined that car 3 was being driven safely and under control but did not leave a fair and acceptable amount of space for car 24 at the exit of the turn, as required by the Sporting Regulations. » explains the FIA.

This infringement drops Bearman from eighth to fifteenth place, propelling Zak O’Sullivan from ART Grand Prix to eighth position and thus granting him the last available point of the sprint race. Note that Bearman also incurs 2 penalty points on his license.

Local driver Jak Crawford penalized on the grid for the long race.

Finally, Jak Crawford has incurred a five-place grid penalty for the main race the next day. The stewards found that during qualifying, he had rendered the rear left tires of two sets of “option” compounds unusable for safety reasons. As this situation was not deemed to result from force majeure, car number 7 was in breach of the sporting regulations. Crawford will therefore start with a five-place disadvantage in the main race, where tire usage is crucial in terms of strategy.