Liam Lawson’s P3 finish in the FIA Formula 2 Championship Feature Race at the 2022 Belgium F1 Grand Prix made it two podiums from two races at the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit to cap off a strong weekend for the Carlin driver. Lawson had earlier on Saturday won the opening Sprint Race after starting fifth on the grid.
Jack Doohan won the Feature Race from Felipe Drugovich and Lawson after starting fourth on the grid.
“I’d like to definitely carry this momentum forward,” commented Lawson. “I said before the weekend that the Championship is out of reach for us so I’m just trying to have some great races and have highlights to finish off the year. This weekend was good, I plan on trying to do the same for the rest of the season.”
Starting from sixth on the grid, Lawson immediately moved up to fifth to battle with Enzo Fittipaldi (Charouz Racing System). Current points leader, Drugovich, surged off the line with Doohan, both clearing Enzo Fittipaldi to take first and second second into La Source. David Beckmann followed through down the Kemmel Straight on the Charouz Racing System driver at Les Combes to take third. Logan Sargeant dropped down also, falling from third on the grid to seventh on the opening lap.
“I had a really good launch again but I was stuck around the outside of Turn 1,” said Lawson. “If I was able to get across, I feel like I’d have been able to jump a couple of cars, I was already a little bit further back than I wanted to be.”
The early stages of the race featured an aggressive battle with Fittipaldi for fourth position.
“Yep, we touched a couple of times. He’s very aggressive and tried the same move I think four times at Turn 5 and every single time the same thing happened. He would come back on after overtaking off the track and stay ahead of me for at times, half a lap. I had the same with Beckmann and it cost us a lot of time. With the last occasion it happens, I’d just come out of the box and had colder tyres so was obviously trying hard to stay in front so I could get some temp and pull away and we were able to do it.”
While much of the mid-field took their compulsory pitstop early, Lawson was the first of the front runners.
“On the option (tyre) I felt that that was where we were the strongest but I was just completely stuck for a long time. We were one of the first to box I think.
“We had a very slow stop and I thought that I was going to come out a lot further back but the undercut worked really, really well. Had everything gone completely to plan, we probably could have fought these guys with an undercut. But in the end, P3 is a good result.”
Drugovich’s points tally climbs up to 205 while Pourchaire’s DNF leaves him 43 points adrift in second. Sargeant remains third in the standings on 127 points. Doohan’s victory lifts him up to fourth in the Championship, now on 121 points ahead of Lawson who reaches 114 for the season.
In the Teams’ Championship, ART Grand Prix still leads the way on 253 points, but Carlin has closed the gap in second, now on 241 points. MP Motorsport remains in third too, now on 232 points.
Formula 2 is back straight away next weekend, with the Championship heading to Zandvoort on September 4-6.
See also: Lawson wins F2 Sprint race at Spa
Feature Race Results
1/ Jack Doohan UNI-Virtuosi
2/ Felipe Drugovich MP Motorsport
3/ Liam Lawson Carlin
4/ Richard Verschoor Trident
5/ Enzo Fittipaldi Charouz Racing System
6/ Logan Sargeant Carlin
7/ David Beckmann Van Amersfoort Racing
8/ Ayumu Iwasa DAMS
9/ Jüri Vips HitechGP
10/ Clement Novalak MP Motorsport
11/ Frederik Vesti ART Grand Prix
12/ Dennis Hauger Prema Powerteam
13/ Marcus Armstrong HitechGP
14/ Ralph Boschung Campos Racing
15/ Marino Sato UNI-Virtuosi
16/ Calan Williams Trident
17/ Amaury Cordeel Van Amersfoort Racing
18/ Tatiana Calderon Charouz Racing System
19/ Roy Nissany DAMS
20/ Jehan Daruvala Prema Powerteam
21/ Lirim Zendeli Campos Racing
DNF Theo Pourchaire ART Grand Prix
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