Jack untouchable in dominant lights-to-flag victory in Hungary 🥇
"A perfect race": that was Jack Doohan's summation of his FIA Formula 2 Feature victory in Hungary, with the 20-year-old taking his fourth F2 win and first of 2023 with a masterful display over 37 laps at the Hungaroring on Sunday.
Friday in Budapest saw Doohan take his fourth pole position in the category, edging Frenchman and fellow Alpine Academy junior Victor Martins (ART) by 0.052 seconds, but that was just an entrée to Sunday's main course at the same circuit where he won the Sprint race 12 months ago.
Jack nailed the start of the Feature from pole, held position comfortably over series leader Frederik Vesti (Prema Racing) as the pair headed the soft-tyre runners in the first stint, and pitted from a six-second advantage for medium-compound rubber with 12 laps remaining.
The Invicta Virtuosi Racing driver then unleashed his true pace in the run to the chequered flag, eventually setting the fastest lap of 1min 30.997secs on the second-last lap, 0.768secs faster than any other driver managed in the race to underline his dominance.
One lap later, victory (by 9.110secs) and a maximum haul of 28 points for the win, fastest lap and pole position was Jack's after a race where he led every lap and was in a class of his own.
"It's what I've wanted to do since the start of the year, and what I believe I've been capable of doing," Jack said of his victory.
"Nothing has really changed in my approach, I'm just getting more and more resilient. I'm super happy that we had a smooth race, the team did an awesome (pit) stop, the car was on rails. To finish it off with mega pace on both tyres was awesome. We got the fastest lap when we weren't pushing for it, so it was a cherry on top to get that at the end."
Jack's victory was his first since the Spa-Francorchamps Feature in August last year, and propelled him to fifth in the F2 championship standings with eight of the season's 26 races still to come. Vesti (153 points) leads the standings from ART's Theo Pourchaire (142), with Jack now on 100 points, five behind Martins in fourth.
On Saturday at the Hungaroring, Jack started and finished 10th in the 28-lap reverse-grid Sprint race that was largely defined by track position and DRS trains, Jack finishing outside of the points after a race-long battle with Vesti that went in the Danish driver's favour with eight laps remaining.
Jack and the F2 grid head to Spa next weekend for the Belgian Grand Prix (July 28-30), the final event before a month-long break that precedes the events at Zandvoort, Monza and Abu Dhabi to round out the 2023 season.
"I'm confident that I can maintain this level of performance, but winning last year (at Spa) honestly means nothing," he said.
"I love the place and we had a great car, but things evolve, times change and we need to push even harder to try and make sure we can replicate something like that. I just want to keep this consistency up, keep this pace that I believe I've had all year. I'm very excited going into the remaining four rounds."
FIA Formula 2 World Championship: Round 9 Hungary results
Sprint race (28 laps): Started 10th, finished 10th
Feature race (37 laps): Started 1st, finished 1st
2023 F2 World Championship standings: 100 points (5th overall)
Next F2 event: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium (July 28-30)