After dominating Qualifying yesterday to take pole by 0.744 seconds, Victor Martins shined again in the Sprint Race at Jeddah today, taking his second podium from three races in the FIA Formula 2 Championship.
The ART Grand Prix rookie rose to seventh on the opening lap from 10th on the grid, then got up to fifth by the time the safety car was deployed on Lap 7. That was due to an incident involving the other ART of Théo Pourchaire, who outbraked himself at Turn 1 and speared into the side of Ollie Bearman, narrowly missing Martins.
At the second safety car restart, Martins immediately passed Sprint Race pole-sitter Jak Crawford on Lap 10, then got by Ralph Boschung down the inside of Lap 14. That put him right behind MP Motorsport’s Jehan Daruvala and into a three-way fight for the win with longtime race leader Ayumu Iwasa.
He inherited second via an opportunistic move at the exit of Turn 2 after Daruvala went wide on Lap 17 of the 20-lap race. He approached Iwasa in each of the final three laps but never got close enough to pull off a move for the lead.
“I don’t remember everything that happened that race,” he told InsideF2 afterwards. “So many things were in front of me. I had to deal with incidents, with overtakes, but then, in the end, I was just trying to stay in the moment, staying calm, and it paid off.
“Let’s see what we can do tomorrow. For sure, I will need to do a good start, and then we will analyse because for sure, tomorrow will be hotter on the track, so maybe more degradation on the supersoft,” he continued.
“In the end, it will be everything to manage in the moment with the team, with the radio, do a good pit stop call.”
Elaborating on the tyre degradation, which he will experience in a Feature Race for the first time, Martins told InsideF2 that the difference between the two compounds on offer this weekend was less pronounced than at other venues, for example the Bahrain International Circuit visited by the series a fortnight ago.
“I don’t know. I didn’t feel so many differences. I think the medium tyre has a lot of grip compared to the supersoft.
“It’s not like Bahrain, where we go from hard to soft, if I’m not wrong, and there was a big, big gap between the two compounds. Now I think the track has a lot of grip also, and I think the gap between the compounds is a lot smaller,” he said.
“Again, I will try to prepare it as much as possible, watching the races from the past, some data from the team, but in the end it’s a compromise that you need to get.
“For sure, I will need to give feedback to the team tonight about the balance and again see what we can deliver tomorrow, but for sure, I will need to deal with the car anyway in the moment in the Feature Race because it will be also my first time doing a pit stop, out lap, all those things. Even if I have done it in the test, it’s always different when we are racing.”
image: Formula Motorsport Limited
