Richard Verschoor won a shortened Formula 2 feature race in Baku on Sunday, but he revealed to Feeder Series afterwards that he thought his race was over when he hit the wall on his way to his pit stop.

By Steven Walton

Formula 2’s feature race in Baku was red-flagged for more than 30 minutes on Sunday because of a start-line crash.

Invicta Racing’s Kush Maini failed to pull away when the lights went out. Oliver Goethe and Pepe Martí both drove into the back of his stationary car, and Martí’s car flipped violently in the crash. All three drivers were unhurt.

The race was resumed with 34 minutes left on the clock, and polesitter Richard Verschoor eventually held on to take his first win of the season after 17 of 29 scheduled laps.

Verschoor was passed on lap seven of the race by Victor Martins, but the ART driver lost the position during his mandatory pit stop at the end of the next lap and had to settle for second. Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed the podium in third.

In the post-race press conference, Verschoor toldFeeder Series that the victory felt “strange”, referencing the fact that he has lost two other wins this season hours after the end of the race.

“Of course I’m happy, but with everything that happened, it’s difficult to straight away be super happy because the past has shown that anything can happen,” he said.

Verschoor won the sprint races on the road inSaudi Arabia andHungary, but he was later stripped of both victories because of technical infringements.

Verschoor also took pole position and led much of the Monaco feature race but lost the chance to win it because of a reliability problem.

“I want to wait a little bit with the guys. Once I go back now, I will check if all the things [are] fine,” Verschoor told Feeder Seriesin the press conference, which took place about 45 minutes after the race ended. The Trident driver’s win has since been finalised.

“We did half of the race. Fuel cannot be an issue. Plank cannot be an issue. It should be all fine, but you just never know,” he continued.

“I’m of course very happy with potentially my first win. First win, it should’ve been I think my fourth, but sometimes life goes like that and you have to move on.”

Verschoor also revealed toFeeder Series that he thought a possible win had disappeared when he hit the wall in the race. He said the incident happened just before he made his mandatory pit stop.

“It was a hard hit, coming out of the last corner on I think we are 250 kph. I’m not sure how I survived, but the car was definitely not straight. My steering was completely to the left and I thought I would lose the win,” Verschoor said. “To be fair, the first four or five laps, I felt okay, but I had to get used to the different kind of inputs I had to give because it was so not straight.

“But in the end, I’m very happy that I didn’t give up when I just hit the wall, because I really thought it was over.”

Verschoor’s collision with the wall came just a day after F2 debutant Gabriele Minìfinished on the podium despite having bent steering from hitting the wall. Minì finished third but said that with the damage, the race was one of the toughest he had driven.

Ollie Bearmantook the F2 pole in Baku last year despite driving with bent steering from hitting the wall during qualifying.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency

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