PREMA Racing’s Dennis Hauger secured his maiden victory in FIA Formula 2 after leading his team-mate Jehan Daruvala to the checkered flag in the Monaco Sprint Race on Saturday.
The 2021 FIA Formula 3 champion capitalised on the reverse-grid pole-sitter, Jake Hughes, stalling his car when the five lights went out and inherited the lead into Saint-Devote without looking back. Hitech Grand Prix’s Marcus Armstrong completed the podium in the principality, coming home in third place.
Championship leader and Sunday’s pole-sitter, Felipe Drugovich, suffered a puncture on the first lap and made a very bold call to switch to the full wet tyres after a brief spell of light rain spitting onto the track. The risk ended up not paying off, with him falling to over a minute behind the pace-setters.
A Safety Car was brought out on lap ten following Clément Novalak making contact with the barriers on the exit of La Rascasse after a bit of wheel-to-wheel action with Ayumu Iwasa. The DAMS‘ driver suffered a broken wing which dropped him down to seventeenth as well as the addition of a ten-second penalty for the dive up the Frenchman’s inside.
After the Safety Car, Hauger looked comfortable in the lead and started to stretch out a gap on his team-mate. Behind Daruvala, Armstrong started to tease the back of the Indian driver’s gearbox and stayed with DRS range for most of the final laps.
After taking his first win in the category, Hauger hopes that this can be the turning point for his season which started off relatively tricky. In the post-race press conference, the Norwegian said, “Barcelona was not good and disappointing but I’m really happy we could turn things around a bit and get that first win. Hopefully this can be a turning point for us.”
“My first win in Formula 2, really happy with that. It was a good race. Obviously Jake stalled,
but from then on I just tried to keep everything clean and keep up some good pace. Really happy with
this win in Monaco.”
Even with the late pressure, Daruvala managed to hang on to second place at the fall of the flag. Charouz Racing System’s Enzo Fittipaldi had another good result in fourth place after holding off a train consisting of Jüri Vips, Théo Pourchaire and Jack Doohan behind him.
Drugovich and Pourchaire will lead the grid from the front-row in Sunday’s Feature Race which will start at 09:50 local time. With these two hotting up to be the main championship contenders, it could be a very important race heading into the mid-season.
| POS | NUM | NAME | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Dennis Hauger | NOR | PREMA Racing | 44:28.491 |
| 2 | 2 | Jehan Daruvala | IND | PREMA Racing | +6.711 |
| 3 | 7 | Marcus Armstrong | NZL | Hitech Grand Prix | +7.267 |
| 4 | 22 | Enzo Fittipaldi | BRA | Charouz Racing System | +13.164 |
| 5 | 8 | Jüri Vips | EST | Hitech Grand Prix | +14.566 |
| 6 | 10 | Théo Pourchaire | FRA | ART Grand Prix | +15.829 |
| 7 | 3 | Jack Doohan | AUS | Virtuosi Racing | +17.365 |
| 8 | 5 | Liam Lawson | NZL | Carlin | +21.670 |
| 9 | 16 | Roy Nissany | ISR | DAMS | +22.838 |
| 10 | 6 | Logan Sargeant | USA | Carlin | +23.031 |
| 11 | 9 | Frederik Vesti | DNK | ART Grand Prix | +26.356 |
| 12 | 23 | Cem Bölükbasi | TUR | Charouz Racing System | +31.338 |
| 13 | 20 | Richard Verschoor | NLD | Trident | +32.414 |
| 14 | 21 | Calan Williams | AUS | Trident | +44.226 |
| 15 | 4 | Marino Sato | JPN | Virtuosi Racing | +44.652 |
| 16 | 14 | Olli Caldwell | GBR | Campos Racing | +45.245 |
| 17 | 25 | Amaury Cordeel | BEL | Van Amersfoort Racing | +47.270 |
| 18 | 24 | Jake Hughes | GBR | Van Amersfoort Racing | +55.403 |
| 19 | 17 | Ayumu Iwasa | JPN | DAMS | +55.751 |
| 20 | 11 | Felipe Drugovich | BRA | MP Motorsport | DNF |
| 21 | 12 | Clément Novalak | FRA | MP Motorsport | DNF |
