2019 Baku Feature Race

The 2019 Baku Feature Race, otherwise officially known as the 2019 Baku City Circuit Race One, was the third round of the 2019 FIA Formula 2 Championship, staged at the Baku City Circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan on the 27 April 2019. The race, staged in support of the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, would see Jack Aitken sweep to victory after a chaotic race.

Nobuharu Matsushita secured his second pole position during qualifying, and his first since the 2017 Monza Feature Race. Nyck de Vries was his closest challenger, having edged out Luca Ghiotto just before Matsushita charged across the line, while Mick Schumacher was the best rookie in sixth.

Ultimately it was de Vries who made the best getaway at the start, squeezing ahead of Matsushita on the quick sprint to turn one. The rest of the field thundered into the tight left-hander behind them, resulting in the two Tridents coming together.

A safety car was required to cover the clearing of the circuit, with Giuliano Alesi left stranded on the circuit. A quick clean-up and the race resumed with de Vries enforcing his lead, while Aitken, up from eighth on the grid, challenged Matsushita for second.

Indeed, it was not long before the Anglo-Korean racer moved to second, passing the Japanese racer as he suffered with a worsening handling issue. Aitken subsequently claimed the lead during the mid-race pitstops, for de Vries would be delayed by a slow stop.

Tatiana Caldéron briefly lead the field during that phase of the race, being the only driver to use the alternative tyre strategy. Unfortunately for her her ploy was destroyed by the safety car's second appearance, this time to allow Schumacher's Prema to be dragged from the circuit in sector three.

Caldéron duly fell back down the field at the restart, losing out almost immediately to Aitken as the race resumed. Aitken would go on to establish a small lead over de Vries as Caldéron continued to fall, only for his lead to be wiped out by a third safety car.

The source of this SC was Guanyu Zhou, who crashed himself out of the race while harassing Juan Manuel Correa. Caldéron was also in trouble, stopping on the start/finish straight on her way to the pits, before the restart had to be abandoned when Sérgio Sette Câmara and Louis Delétraz crashed at turn one.

When the race did resume it was left to Aitken to claim victory, with the Anglo-Korean racer just keeping out of reach of de Vries to the chequered flag. Third would go to a hard charging Jordan King, who passed Nicholas Latifi at the restart, with the Canadian racer moving back to the top of the Championship.

Background
The 2019 FIA Formula 2 Championship reunited with Formula One in late April, joining its parent series in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan, for a fourth consecutive season. The Baku City Circuit itself was unchanged for the F2 field, with the DRS zones remaining in the exact same places as they had in 2018. Furthermore, there were no changes to the entry list ahead of the second round of the season, despite the fact that there were still seats available in other series.

A Gaming Graduation
The big news ahead of the Baku races would be that the FIA Formula 2 Championship would feature in an official racing game for the first time in its history. Indeed, Codemasters, to mark their tenth year of producing F1 licenced games, secured rights to include F2 in F1 2019, the latest edition of the franchise. F1 2019, set to release on the 28 June 2019, would see F2's class of 2018 feature on the game from launch, with a post-release update set to add the 2019 field to the game.

Initial Impacts
Victory in the Bahrain Sprint had left Luca Ghiotto at the head of the Championship, albeit just two points ahead of Bahrian Feature winner Nicholas Latifi. Sérgio Sette Câmara was next, ten off the leader, while Louis Delétraz opened his campaign in fourth ahead of Anthoine Hubert, the best placed rookie. Indeed, both he, Guanyu Zhou and Mick Schumacher had all got on the board on their first F2 weekend, with eleven scorers in total.

In the Teams' Championship it was DAMS who had left Bahrain at the head of the field, opening their campaign with a healthy 14 point lead. UNI-Virtuosi were their closest challengers in second, scoring 48 points across their "first" F2 weekend, while Carlin were a relatively distant third, 30 off their compatriots. Next up were BWT Arden and ART Grand Prix, level on 12, with Prema Racing, Campos Racing and MP Motorsport also on the board.

Entry List
The full entry list for the is displayed below:

Results
The final qualifying result for the are outlined below:
 * * Raghunathan was awarded a ten place grid penalty for passing the cheqeuered flag twice in Bahrain. This was supplanted by the Indian driver having start from the pit lane after missing a weight check during practice.
 * † Gelael was excluded from the results of qualifying for causing a red flag, before restarting his car and putting marshals in a dangerous situation.

Race
It was a warm afternoon in Baku, Azerbaijan for the third race of the 2019 season, with the track sitting at a warm 40°C after the Formula One qualifying session had come to an end. Ahead of the race there would be a change to the grid as Mahaveer Raghunathan was made to start from the pitlane after missing a weight check, while Sean Gelael was excluded for causing a red flag. Regardless, it was Nobuharu Matsushita who would lead the field onto the grid, sharing the front row with Nyck de Vries for the start.

Report
An even start for the front row starts when the lights went out, with Matsushita instantly darting across to block de Vries on the inside, prompting the Dutchman to throw his car to the left as well. That, ultimately, ensured that he could dive inside the Japanese racer into turn one to secure the lead as behind Mick Schumacher sent a wild lunge on the inside line to the first corner to try and gain ground. He would almost collect Luca Ghiotto as the Italian turned in, forcing the #8 UNI-Virtuosi to take avoiding action, with the #9 Prema rejoining in sixth.

Amid that chaos would rise Jack Aitken, who would climb from eighth to fifth before the first corner, before overtaking both of the DAMS cars to secure third into turn two. Anthoine Hubert would also gain from the incidents ahead, darting around Schumacher on the brakes for turn three to secure sixth, while Ghiotto slotted onto the back of the lead group in eighth. Ghiotto duly attacked Schumacher for seventh as Hubert powered away, although his efforts were put on hold as the Safety Car was scrambled from the pitlane.

Indeed, there had been more incidents at the first corner, although the cameras had instead focused on the action at the head of the field. Replays showed that Callum Ilott had a rear lock-up on the brakes for turn one, and hence went straight into the back of a slow starting Jordan King. That pitched the #16 MP Motorsport into a half-spin, before collecting the two Tridents of Ralph Boschung and Giuliano Alesi. Boschung was spun around and stalled in the pit entry, while Alesi had picked up terminal damage and stopped a few yards further up the road.

The restart came on lap four, with de Vries boldly waiting until the final moment to jump on the throttle to lead the field across the line, a ploy which allowed the #4 ART Grand Prix to secure the lead unchallenged into the first corner. Indeed, Matsushita had to instead take a defensive line to keep Aitken at bay, which paid off, with Aitken baulked enough that he lost out to Nicholas Latifi. Aitken retaliated with a successful lunge inside the Canadian racer into turn two with the rest of the field making it through the first few corners after the restart without issue.

With that the race began to settle down, with de Vries establishing a significant 1.5 second lead, while Matsushita managed to get out of DRS range from Aitken. That Anglo-Korean driver would hence have to defend from Latifi and Sérgio Sette Câmara, although that would change when Matsushita suddenly lost power towards the end of lap five. Latifi used that opportunity to attack Aitken into turn one, while Hubert pounced on a baulked Sette Câmara, only to be re-passed by the Brazilian and Schumacher into turn one at the end of the start/finish straight.

After that the leaders would begin to make their stops for the medium compound tyres, with de Vries leading Aitken in at the end of lap seven to replace their worn ultra-soft Pirelli rubber. Sette Câmara duly swept through to claim the lead ahead of Dorian Boccolacci, with Latifi, Schumacher, Hubert, Ghiotto and Louis Delétraz also diving in at the same moment. In that switch Ghiotto would get the jump on Hubert, while de Vries had a slow stop and was left with Aitken on his tail at pit-out, with the Anglo-Korean racer duly diving past the Dutchman on the brakes for turn three a few moments later.

A lap later and Latifi was past de Vries for de facto second into turn one, as the rest of the field bar Tatiana Caldéron and Raghunathan served their stops to leave the former at the head of the pack having yet to stop. A few moments later and there was more drama, as Schumacher spun out of the race exiting turn sixteen, after taking too much kerb while stamping on the throttle. The German racer was removed from the middle of the track by the marshals under the cover of the safety car, with Caldéron tasked with leading the field to the restart for the first time in her F2 career.

Unfortunately for Caldéron her older tyres were no match to those behind, with Aitken instantly diving past the Colombian racer to secure the lead into turn one. Latifi followed him through with de Vries on his tail, with those two subsequently squabbling for second over the following laps as Caldéron slipped back. Ultimately, it would take de Vries until lap twelve to finally get the move done, having to wait until DRS came back on-line to dart past the Canadian.

The race began to settle down after that, with Caldéron falling to Sette Câmara and Ghiotto as she ran with the alternate strategy. Zhou, meanwhile, would find himself in a fight with Juan Manuel Correa into the first corner on lap seventeen, although a bid to lunge around the outside of the American racer resulted in Zhou smashing into the back of the Charouz-Sauber. His damaged car triggered a third safety car, which would see Caldéron stop on track with a mechanical issue, moments before she was due to make her stop for the ultra-soft tyres.

The third restart of the day was to come at the end of lap twenty, with Aitken copying de Vries' tactic from earlier in the race and creeping to the line before going. That, ultimately, caused some confusion behind, with the intense weaving throughout the field inevitably leading to a collision between Sette Câmara and Ghiotto which spat the former into the wall. The rest of the field scrambled around the incident, with Delétraz the big loser as he hit the back of Boccolacci when trying to avoid the accident.

That incident delayed the restart enough that the race would finish at the one-hour time limit, with the restart coming with three and a half minutes to go. This time the field would give each other more room on the now expected crawl to the line, with Aitken going the moment he moved level with the pitwall. The rest of the field would go with him, although Hubert notably lost out after getting wheelspin when he tried to join the stampede into the first corner, before sliding down the escape road with cold brakes.

Aitken escaped from de Vries in the closing moments, while behind King would dance his MP Motorsport around the outside of Latifi for third at turn three. That proved to be the final major change to the order, with Aitken easing away from de Vries to secure victory, with King and Latifi trailing in their wake. Boccolacci was next up ahead of Ghiotto before the Italian was penalised for triggering the restart accident, meaning he was classified in ninth behind Sean Gelael, Correa and Mazepin. Hubert then claimed the final point in tenth, with Raghunathan, Boschung and Matsushita the only other finishers.

Results
The final classification of the is displayed below:
 * Bold indicates a driver started from pole.
 * Italics indicate that a driver set fastest lap.
 * * Boccolacci was awarded a two place grid penalty for failing to enter the pit lane as instructed by the race director.
 * † Ghiotto was handed a five second time penalty for causing a collision.

Milestones

 * Second pole position for Nobuharu Matsushita.
 * Jack Aitken claimed his second victory.
 * Campos Racing secured their first win in the FIA Formula 2 Championship.
 * It was also Campos' thirteenth F2/GP2 level win, and first since the 2016 Red Bull Ring Feature Race.
 * Maiden F2 podium for Jordan King.
 * Maiden points finishes for Dorian Boccolacci, Juan Manuel Correa and Nikita Mazepin.

Standings
Fourth place for Nicholas Latifi was enough to put the Canadian racer back on top of the Championship hunt in Baku, leaving him on 47 points heading into the Sprint. Luca Ghiotto, meanwhile, would drop to second, eight off the leader, while Jack Aitken leapt into third after his win. Nyck de Vries was next up in fourth ahead of Sérgio Sette Câmara, with fifteen drivers on the board.

In the Teams' Championship it was still DAMS who led the charge, having completed the Feature with 74 points. That left the French squad 24 points clear of UNI-Virtuosi in second, with a seven point gap back to Campos Racing in third. ART Grand Prix were next ahead of Carlin, while the Sauber Junior Team were on the board, albeit down in ninth.

Only point scoring drivers and teams are shown.