The French Formula 2 championship leader Théo Pourchaire (ART GP), third in the main race this Sunday on the Monza circuit in Italy, took advantage of the abandonment of his rival for the title, the Dane Frederik Vesti, to widen the gap at the top of the championship.
One round from the end of the season where 39 points still remain to be distributed, Pourchaire leaves Italy with a 25 point lead over his runner-up Vesti (Prema). But there is no question of getting carried away for the 20-year-old Gapois: “I am not yet champion (…), we do not know what can happen”.
Starting in pole position at the Monza Autodrome, the protégé of the Alfa Romeo team in F1 finished behind the Briton Oliver Bearman (Prema) and the Japanese Ayumu Iwasa (Dams), who moved up from 12th place thanks to a profitable strategy, at the end of a race marked by the intervention of several safety cars. The day before, the Frenchman had finished 4th in the sprint race won by Vesti, the victim on Sunday of going off the track at the start of the race. His car being too damaged, the Dane had to retire.
“I knew I had a good shot at it and we did it – although I was hoping to do a bit better as we weren’t at our best with the car set-up,” he said. AFP the reigning F2 vice-champion.
As for the other Frenchmen entered in F2, Isack Hadjar (Hitech) finished 11th while Victor Martins (ART GP) and Clément Novalak (Trident) had to retire. The last round of the F2 championship, the antechamber of Formula 1, will be held from November 24 to 26 in Abu Dhabi.
