Starting with Formula 2, Martins secured the first position on the podium after winning the Sprint Race, while Jak Crawford also clinched a debut victory in the Feature race.
Heading to Barcelona for the 6th round of the 2024 FIA Formula 2 Championship, only two drivers had managed to win more than one race. Rodin team driver from Barbados, Zane Maloney, had a double success by impressively winning both the Sprint and Feature races in the first round in March at the Bahrain International Circuit. Isack Hadjar, a French driver from the Spanish Campos team, achieved consecutive victories in the Feature events at Albert Park and Imola.
During a fierce one-hour qualifying session, Estonian driver Paul Aron secured pole position, edging out Crawford by just 0.002 seconds. The second row was composed of Argentine Franco Colapinto and Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto, who are neighboring countries in Latin America.
As a hopeful for the 2025 Formula 1 season, Andrea “Kimi” Antonelli qualified in fifth place. Oliver Bearman, the standout of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, started in 15th position on the grid.
Indian driver Kush Maini started the race from the pole position of the reversed grid, with Frenchman Martins alongside him on the front row. The 22 cars on the grid made a clean start, and Martins took the opportunity to lead into turn 1 of the 26-lap Sprint race. By the end of the first lap, Maini dropped to fourth position, overtaken by Ritomo Miata and Juan Manuel Correa. Maini and his Brazilian teammate Gabriel Bortoleto quickly launched a joint counterattack on Correa, successfully passing him on the second lap of the race.
Miyata closely followed Martins in the early laps, but couldn’t overtake the French driver for the lead. On lap 6, Hadjar expressed his frustration with Antonelli’s driving, stating that “he’s moving too much during braking.” Meanwhile, Antonelli’s teammate Oliver Bearman was struggling in 17th position. The British driver was soon informed by his team about a third and final track limits violation.
Bearman responded, “It’s hard not to exceed the track limits when I can’t **** turn.”
Up front, Miyata set fast laps, but couldn’t close the gap to Martins within the DRS zone. On lap 12, Antonelli lost two positions to Hadjar and Crawford. In the same lap, Bearman received instructions from his team to go to the pits and retire from the race.
On lap 17, Miyata received a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits and later received another five-second penalty for a separate violation. On lap 20 of the 26-lap race, Correa applied immense pressure on Bortoleto in an attempt to secure fourth place. The Brazilian driver put up a strong defense, as this battle was for the final podium position, thanks to a 10-second penalty for Miyata.
On the penultimate lap, at Turn 10, Correa successfully overtook Bortoleto to secure his first Formula 2 podium since his tragic collision with Anthoine Hubert at Spa in 2019, which unfortunately resulted in Hubert’s death.
Martins, a junior driver for Alpine, led from start to finish to secure his first win of the season with a 4.4-second advantage over Maini, who managed to recover second place after a slow start.
In the thrilling race that followed the start, Paul Aron, the Estonian driver, took the lead from pole position. However, his hopes of victory were dashed in the first corner when he was hit by Dennis Hauger, the Norwegian driver, causing both cars to get stuck in the gravel. As a result, the safety car had to be deployed.
On the fourth lap, when the lights turned green, Matteo Antonelli, one of the drivers, informed his team that there was rain on the track. At the end of that lap, Aron was still leading the race, closely followed by three drivers from the Americas: Crawford in second place, Colapinto in third, and Bortoleto in fourth. Hadjar also had a great start, moving up to the top five from 11th place on the grid.
The first change in the top five positions occurred on the eighth lap when Joshua Durksen from Paraguay overtook Hadjar, pushing him down to sixth place. Crawford was the first among the top five drivers to make a pit stop to change tires on the ninth lap. Three laps later, Aron and Colapinto, who were leading the race, also made their mandatory pit stops. Aron managed to come out ahead of Crawford, but the American quickly overtook him to take the lead. The three drivers who had not yet stopped to change tires were Durksen, Correa, and Maini.
On the 16th lap, Aron went off track and ended up in the gravel, causing him to lose three positions. One lap later, Durksen, who was leading the race at that moment, had technical issues and had to retire from the race. This allowed Correa to take the lead, with Maini in third place. The race was under Virtual Safety Car (VSC) conditions during lap 20, and the action resumed on lap 20. The top five drivers at this point were Correa, Maini, Verschoor, Colapinto, and Marti.
On lap 25 of the 37-lap race, the top five drivers who had not yet pitted to change tires were Correa, Maini, Cordeel, Marti, and Antonelli. The net race leader, Crawford, was in sixth place, followed by Colapinto. On the next lap, Crawford moved up to the top five after overtaking Antonelli.
On lap 28, Correa made a pit stop from the lead. After all the leaders completed their tire changes, Crawford returned to the lead on lap 29, with a 3.8-second advantage over Colapinto. Correa, who was on soft tires, made impressive progress in the final laps of the race. He overtook Hadjar on lap 31 with the help of the Drag Reduction System (DRS) and, before the end of the lap, also passed Bortoleto to secure fourth place. Correa wasted no time in overtaking Aron and claiming third place. His next target was second-place Colapinto. However, despite his pace, Correa ran out of laps and had to settle for third place, allowing Colapinto to maintain his second-place position.
At the end of lap 37, Jak “JetPak” Crawford, the American driver from Charlotte, North Carolina, emerged as the cool and calculated winner of the race. This was his second career victory and his first win in a Feature Race.
Paul Aron, a member of the Mercedes junior team and in his first season in F2, currently leads the championship with 100 points. Hadjar, who is part of the Red Bull brigade, is in second place with 91 points. Maloney, a Sauber Academy driver, occupies third position with 75 points. Sunday’s Feature Race winner, Crawford, who was previously a Red Bull junior, is in fourth place with 62 points. He scored the most points (30) during the Spanish weekend. Completing the top five is another former Red Bull junior, Dennis Hauger, with 56 points.
Passing to F3, the first eight races of the season had eight different winners. In his debut in F3 in Bahrain, Arvid Lindblad, Red Bull junior, emerged as the winner. This victory was especially significant for him, as he had lost a substantial advantage in the Italian F4 championship last year. The Doctor, Dr. Marko, demands immediate performance and results. Unfortunately, Kacper Sztuka, the young driver who made an incredible comeback to win Lindblad’s championship, did not meet Dr. Marko’s expectations. As a result, he was recently removed from the Red Bull junior program.
Returning to the familiar ground of the Barcelona circuit, the young F3 drivers prepared for the race weekend after a three-day test at the Montmelo circuit in April. Leading the championship is Gabriele Mini, from Sicily, with 72 points, closely followed by Luke Browning, who is just four points behind. Leonardo Fornaroli is in third place, four points behind Browning.
In the 100th FIA Formula 3 race on Sunday, Australian Christian Mansell secured his first career pole position, beating Lindblad by a mere 0.03 seconds. Bulgarian Nikolai Tsolov qualified in third place, sharing the second row with Luke Browning. German Red Bull junior Oliver Goethe finished fifth on the grid, ahead of Fornaroli.
Mexican Santiago Ramos took the lead from the inverted pole position, closely followed by French driver Sami Meguetounif, local hero Mari Boya, and Irishman Alex Dunne. There was chaotic shuffling of positions as the drivers fought to advance, with a particularly bold move from Christian Mansell on the outside, taking him to thirteenth place.
In front, Ramos and Meguetounif, teammates at Trident, fought for the lead, reminiscent of the rivalry between Rosberg and Hamilton. Meguetounif, using the DRS, pressed the issue and ended up going off track, colliding with Ramos. Meguetounif’s race ended, while Ramos had to go to the pits due to a punctured rear tire. The confusion allowed Boya to take the lead, followed by Dunne and Goethe.
A safety car was deployed on lap 3 after Nikita Bedrin and Callum Voisin collided under yellow flag. The race resumed on lap 8, with Boya maintaining his position in front. As the laps went by, the pack began to spread out.
The standout performance of the day came from Sebastian Montoya, a Colombian F3 driver based in Miami and son of Juan Pablo. Starting from 27th position, Montoya climbed an impressive 12 positions before his race came to an abrupt end on lap 18, when he collided with Gabriele Mini. Both drivers pointed fingers at each other for the incident. The safety car returned to the track and led the cars to the checkered flag at the end of lap 21.
Local driver Boya emerged as the winner, securing his first victory in F3. Irish driver Alex Dunne claimed second place, achieving his first podium of the season. Goethe completed the podium in third place. This race marked the 99th in the modern era of F3 and produced the ninth different winner in nine races.
The 100th race of the modern era of Formula 3 finally produced a double winner for the first time this season. In the 25-lap race, the drivers who started on the front row – Mansell and Lindblad – held their positions as they entered Turn 1 and completed the first lap. Tsolov, Browning, and Fornaroli completed the top five.
Lindblad made a maneuver to overtake Mansell and took the lead on lap 5. Meanwhile, Browning overtook Tsolov to secure third place. After ten laps, the top five remained the same: Lindblad, Mansell, Browning, Tsolov, and Fornaroli. Boya, who won the Sprint race on Saturday, finished in 10th place, ahead of Dino Beganovic from the Ferrari Driver Academy. Montoya finished in 19th place, followed by Charlie Wurz, another driver from a racing family.
Sophia Floersch, the only female driver in the series and a member of the Alpine Racing Academy, finished in 22nd place.
The rain started to fall on the track in Spain on lap 15. On lap 22, Fornaroli overtook Tsolov to secure fourth place. Browning, who was in third, had less than two seconds ahead of him with three laps remaining. On the final lap, Fornaroli managed to climb onto the podium by overtaking Browning at Turn 1 as the rain intensified. Goethe also overtook Browning, pushing the British driver into fifth place.
Lindblad, the youngest driver in the series and only in his second full season of single-seater racing, clinched his second win of the season for the Italian team Prema Racing. He had previously won the season opener in Bahrain, becoming the first driver to secure more than one victory this season.
Thanks to his performance on the final lap, Fornaroli now leads the championship standings with 84 points. Browning is in second place with 79 points. Mini, who entered the Barcelona race as the championship leader, has now dropped to third place with 72 points. Lindblad is just one point behind the leader after his Sunday victory, occupying fifth place with 65 points.
The next rounds of Formula 2 and Formula 3 will take place at the Red Bull Ring alongside the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix.
© 2024
Yesterday night an exciting football match between the teams of Flamengo and Palmeiras took place. The two teams faced each other at Maracanã Stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, and provided the fans with an emotional game.
Right at the beginning of the match, Flamengo opened the score with a beautiful goal from their star striker. However, Palmeiras did not back down and managed to equalize the game still in the first half.
In the second half, both teams sought victory at all times, creating several goal opportunities. Flamengo had some clear chances, but were stopped by the good saves of the opposing goalkeeper.
When everything seemed to be heading towards a draw, Palmeiras surprised and scored the winning goal in the final minutes. Flamengo’s fans were devastated, while Palmeiras fans celebrated greatly.
With this victory, Palmeiras remains in the lead of the championship and increases the advantage over its main competitors. Flamengo, on the other hand, needs to quickly recover to fight for the title again.
Flamengo’s next match will be against Santos, at Vila Belmiro stadium. Palmeiras will face Internacional, at Allianz Parque. Both matches promise to be exciting and will define the course of the championship.
Fans of both teams are anxious for the upcoming matches and hope that their teams continue to play well. The rivalry between Flamengo and Palmeiras is historical and always provides great games.
Stay tuned for the latest news and follow closely everything that happens in the world of football. Don’t miss any play and stay updated on all the news of your favorite team.
