- Swede dovetails F1 and F2 commitments in Spielberg
- 11 places gained in feature race recovery
Dino Beganovic experienced an emotional weekend in the Styrian hills as he doubled up with a Formula 1 free practice outing and plenty of action in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, finally returning to the points after a battling recovery on Sunday.
“Getting the chance to be back in the F1 car again was obviously incredible,” says Dino Beganovic. “It was a productive day on my side, as I was able to complete our programme supporting the team in gathering data. Being able to run in an F1 car again feels extremely good, even more so when you’ve got the Prancing Horse on your race suit. I want to thank Scuderia Ferrari HP and the Academy for this opportunity.”
In a drastic swing of fortunes, however, Beganovic endured a much harder time in the subsequent Formula 2 qualifying session less than two hours later, struggling to a highly disappointing 21st place with Hitech team-mate Luke Browning also down in 17th.
From his lowly grid slot, Beganovic then came just four laps in Saturday’s sprint race before being hit from behind by a rival driver (who was given a 10-second penalty for the incident), retiring on the spot.
The weekend would end on a more positive note in Sunday’s feature race, however, as Beganovic made up 11 places on his way to P10* – finally returning to the points after non-scoring events in Monaco and Barcelona.
“Today was a decent race under the circumstances, and it’s nice to score a point again after some really difficult weekends,” says Dino Beganovic. “That said, clearly we have been lacking a lot this weekend and I’m not going to be happy with a tenth-place finish. There is a lot to work on. We need to analyse this and make the most of the short time available before Silverstone to try and get on top of the things that are currently holding us back.”
The FIA Formula 2 Championship resumes in just one week’s time (July 4-6) at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
* Following the conclusion of the meeting, the disqualification of another driver saw Dino ultimately classified ninth in the feature race. Results and standings have been updated accordingly below.
RESULTS
FIA Formula 2 Championship
Rd. 7 – Spielberg (AUT)
Race 1 (Sprint Race)
1: J. Martí (ESP), Campos Racing
2: J. Dürksen (PRY), AIX Racing
3: R. Stanek (CZE), Invicta Racing
—
DNF: D. Beganovic (SWE), Hitech
Race 2 (Feature Race)
1: R. Verschoor (NED), MP Motorsport
2: L. Fornaroli (ITA), Invicta Racing
3: J. Crawford (USA), DAMS
—
9: D. Beganovic (SWE), Hitech
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
FIA Formula 2 Championship
After 7/14 rounds
1: R. Verschoor (NED), MP Motorsport, 114 p.
2: A. Dunne (IRE), Rodin Motorsport, 90 p.
3: J. Crawford (USA), DAMS Lucas Oil, 88 p.
4: L. Fornaroli (ITA), Invicta Racing, 86 p.
5: L. Browning (GBR), Hitech, 83 p.
—
10: D. Beganovic (SWE), Hitech, 31 p.
