An early twist to the FIA Formula 2 story in 2021 as Juri Vips was disqualified from qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix due to a technical infringement.
The Estonian’s number eight Hitech GP car was found to undertray fins that were not in compliance with the rules – more specifically, article 4.3.13 of the FIA F2 technical regulations for 2021.
As a result, Vips lost all of his lap times and will start dead last for both tomorrow’s first sprint race and Sunday’s feature race.
It’s a big blow for Vips and Hitech as the Red Bull junior had qualified fifth in Friday’s exciting qualifying session (topped by Guanyu Zhou of UNI-Virtuosi) so his disqualification has shaken up the grid for tomorrow’s opening race of 2021.
Théo Pourchaire had been the unfortunate one to qualify one place outside the reversed top ten but Vips’ penalty means the Frenchman starts on pole for the sprint race while original pole-sitter David Beckmann now starts second, with Vips’ teammate Liam Lawson and PREMA’s Oscar Piastri on row two.
