Paul Aron secured his first Formula 2 victory of the season, benefiting from a penalty for title contender Gabriel Bortoleto.
Having started from pole, Aron was unable to topple his Invicta rival on the track, but a virtual safety car-related penalty ultimately enabled him to leapfrog onto the top step of the podium.
The penalty also saw Isack Hadjar pass Bortoleto into 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, taking Aron’s Hitech on the run to Turn 1, leaving the Estonian battling to remain in second with Dino Beganovic (DAMS) and Victor Martins (ART) after suffering with significant wheelspin on the grid.
Although Aron was able to stick within DRS range of the championship leader for a handful of laps, once he dropped over a second behind, the margin increased at a rate of knots, climbing to over six seconds by lap seven when the Estonian was among the first stoppers on medium rubber.
But as Bortoleto pulled across to the pit entry the following lap, the virtual safety car was deployed to allow for the recovery of Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Prema 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 attempting to enter 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 original hard starters now at the front of the back led by Oliver Bearman and championship rival Hadjar directly behind, Bortoleto went on the attack, attempting to pass Campos driver Pepe Marti on the outside of Turn 1 before being edged off the track and into the brake markers – an incident that was 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 losing the rear of his Prema at the final corner, which saw Joshua Durksen illegally slide his AIX entry through into the 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 on lap 23 – with the race duration having now switched to time certainty.
With the clock ticking down to five minutes, Bortoleto threw his Invicta to the inside of Turn 1 to pass Durksen – who was yet to stop – giving himself the opportunity to establish the gap needed to negate his penalty. By the end of that lap, he had pulled a 1.7s margin on Aron – crucially, denying Aron any further DRS use.
Pitting with two minutes remaining on the clock, 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 half a second within range of Bortoleto’s penalty to put himself into second place.
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
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