In Round 12 of the Formula 2 Championship in Baku, Dino Beganovic claimed victory ahead of Laurens van Hoepen and Alexander Dunne. Nikola Tsolov had a complicated sprint race as Rafael Câmara got a 10-second penalty.
Tsolov leads into Turn 1
At the start, Nikola Tsolov had a good launch and defended the lead into Turn 1. Behind him, Dino Beganovic cleared Laurens van Hoepen and moved into second place. Further back, Rafael Câmara and Mari Boya made contact before Turn 2, and Boya spun off. The incident triggered a Lap 1 Safety Car.
Câmara got a 10-second penalty for causing the collision. On Lap 3, the Sprint race restarted, and Tsolov defended the lead from Beganovic. Behind them, Câmara moved up to fourth. Further back, Joshua Dürksen started in P16 and, after 5 laps, moved up to P11.
At the front, Beganovic went around the outside and took the lead on lap 6. The Swedish driver cleared the Red Bull Junior, who lost DRS and had Van Hoepen behind him. In P13, Gabriele Mini tried to close the gap to Ritomo Miyata.
On lap 9, Câmara was under pressure from Sebastián Montoya. Running in P5, the Invicta Racing driver had to drive a damage-limitation race because of the time penalty. At the front, Tsolov made a mistake, and Van Hoepen overtook him. The Bulgarian was now under pressure from Alexander Dunne, currently in P4.
Beganovic leads comfortably
As the Sprint race progressed, Beganovic had a comfortable lead over Van Hoepen. Meanwhile, Tsolov struggled with the rear tyres and lost two positions to Dunne and Câmara. On lap 14, the front started to spread out even more. Behind them, Mini made a recovery drive and moved up to P10.
While the front settled, Montoya and Martinius Stenshorne caught up to Tsolov in P5. The Bulgarian struggled to find the pace, but still defended against both Montoya and Stenshorne. Stenshorne cleared Montoya and started chasing Nikola Tsolov.
On lap 17, Stenshorne overtook Tsolov. At the same time, Kush Maini and Roman Bilinski overtook Montoya, who dropped to P9. On lap 18, Dürksen went wide into Turn 1 and went into the barrier, triggering a yellow flag and later on, a Safety Car. Câmara pitted and served the 10-second penalty; he rejoined in P18.
After the Safety Car restart, Beganovic defended the lead and secured the Sprint win. Meanwhile, after Oliver Goethe locked up and involved both Mini and Câmara, neither could make up any places and were essentially taken out of the race.
After an impressive drive and pace from the Swedish driver, Dino Beganovic claimed victory ahead of Laurens van Hoepen and Alexander Dunne.
