Liam Lawson wins Formula 2 sprint race after safety car confusion in Saudi Arabia
Liam Lawson has won his first race of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season with a dominant performance that saw him edge out Jüri Vips and Jake Hughes in Saudi Arabia.
Liam Lawson celebrates his first win of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season in Saudi Arabia. (Formula Motorsport Limited)
Lawson was in position to follow Hughes into the lead after a safety car restart, and with Hughes on the alternate strategy using soft tyres, just had to wait until the Van Amersfoort Racing driver began to fall off the pace.
“We managed to survive the first 70% of the race and we were running in third during the second restart," said Lawson.
"I was able to grab the lead in the last couple of laps."
Lawson now leads the Formula 2 championship standings after placing on the podium in the first three races of the season.
“The car was really, really fast, so a massive thank you to Carlin and everybody," said the Kiwi.
"Hopefully we can do something similar tomorrow.”
Liam Lawson, Juri Vips, and Jake Hughes on the podium in Saudi Arabia. (Formula Motorsport Limited)
With Aussie Jack Doohan disqualified from the qualifying results after not having enough fuel to finish the session, Dennis Hauger was promoted to tenth on the timesheets and reverse-grid pole position for the sprint race.
Hauger wasted no time at the start, puling away brilliantly and leaving Jake Hughes to be swallowed up by the chasing pack.
Aussie Calan Williams was into second while Hughes fell to fourth behind Ayumu Iwasa.
Hughes recovered quickly after the poor start and mounted a charge on Iwasa, with Liam Lawson attempting to join him in sneaking past his fellow Red Bull junior, but the race was soon brought under the control of the safety car after Amaury Cordeel hit the wall.
After an extended recovery period, the race resumed on lap seven, but the blind approach before the long front straight led to chaos, with Jack Doohan colliding full speed with the rear of Logan Sargeant as they both accelerated to catch the field ahead on the restart.
The race was immediately brought behind the safety car once again.
The seemingly contradictory messages on the FIA messaging system. (WatchESPN/Courtesy of Fox Sports Australia)
Dennis Hauger was the apparent victim of miscommunication from race control, when his PREMA Racing team were told to drive through the pit lane despite electronic flag marshall boards displaying the "pit entry closed" red cross symbol.
Hauger followed the advice from his team and entered the pit lane, losing the lead to Williams while the rest of the field passed on the track.
The PREMA driver was then given a 10-second stop-go penalty for failing to follow the directions from the on-track signal.
"It was just frustrating," said Hauger.
"We got confirmation from race control that we were supposed to go through the pit lane."
"We did so and got a penalty for listening."
"It feels a bit unfair, after losing the chance to fight for my first F2 win."
Calan Williams inherited the lead for the next restart, with the race resuming on lap 14.
With Hughes chasing him down with soft tyres, Williams was unable to hold onto the lead at the restart, with Hughes ahead into turn two and swiftly followed by Liam Lawson.
Vips went three wide past Marcus Armstrong and Felipe Druogvich into the final corner, before catching Iwasa on the main straight for fourth.
Liam Lawson was chasing down the lead at a rate of knots while Hughes' tyres began to degrade, bringing the gap to just three tenths of a second on lap 17.
Lawson was easily past Hughes down the main straight on the next time round, while Vips dispatched Calan Williams to take the final podium position.
With Lawson stretching out his lead, Vips set about chasing down second.
A spin from Armstrong brought out a brief virtual safety car, giving Vips one lap of green-flag racing to catch Hughes when the track was cleared.
Despite a last-second challenge on the final lap, it appeared Hughes would cross the line in second, but Vips held his line through the final corner and beat Hughes to the line in a thrilling drag race to determine the minor podium positions.
To add insult to injury, Hughes was then disqualified from the race results when his ride-height plank failed scrutineering.
The final podium was Lawson and Vips ahead of Felipe Drugovich.
The Brazilian made up seven places after starting tenth on the grid to grab third.
Calan Williams was fourth with Armstrong and Doohan both out of the race.
PREMA Racing lodged an appeal for Dennis Hauger's penalty after the race, however the penalty was upheld.
The FIA stewards noted that the "pit lane closed" message was displayed after the conversation with the race director, and that the team had one minute to react to that message before Hauger entered the pits.
The FIA Formula 2 championship returns with the Saudi Arabian feature race on Monday 12.35am AEDT on Kayo Sports in Australia, or 2.35am NZDT on Spark Sport in New Zealand.
