Aron wins after Bortoleto's penalty to shut the title fight

Paul Aron secured his first Formula 2 victory of the season after making the most of a penalty for title challenger Gabriel Bortoleto.

Starting from pole position, Aron was unable to beat his Invicta rival on the right track, but a virtual safety automotive penalty ultimately allowed him to leap to the highest step of the rostrum.

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After a penalty kick, Isack Hadjar moved Bortoleto into second place, moving him one weekend ahead of the Brazilian in first place within the table.

Bortoleto quickly moved to the front of the sphere, beating Hitech Aron on the run into the primary corner, leaving the Estonian struggling to remain in second place together with Dino Beganovic (DAMS) and Victor Martins (ART) after experiencing significant wheel spin on the grid corner .

Although Aron was capable of stay inside DRS of the championship leader for several laps, once he was over a second back, the lead grew at a rate of knots, reaching over six seconds on lap seven when the Estonian was among the many first stoppers on medium rubber.

However, when Bortoleto pitted on the next lap, a virtual safety automotive was deployed to permit the recovery of Andrea Kimi Antonelli's Prema after contact with Richard Verschoor within the pit lane, for which the latter received a 10-second penalty for dangerous release.

Because the VSC doesn’t allow mandatory stops, Bortoleto avoided attempting to enter the pit lane, but his move got here too late and he drove on the fallacious side of a traffic light pole, leading to a five-second penalty.

With the unique hard starts now front-to-back, led by Oliver Bearman and championship rival Hadjara directly behind, Bortoleto went on the attack, attempting to pass Campos driver Pepe Marti on the surface of Turn 1 before being pushed off the track and into brake markers – an event that was not deemed worthy of a penalty.

The motion was interrupted again after lower than a lap when Jak Crawford sent Rafael Villagomez (Van Amersfoort Racing) right into a spin at turn six, causing each drivers to retire from the race.

The restart on lap 17 was equally wild, with Bearman losing the rear of his Prema in the ultimate corner, which saw Joshua Durksen illegally take the lead from AIX. However, after quickly changing positions, the referees took no further motion.

As the race gained rhythm, Bortoleto, Aron and Hadjar began to rotate drivers who had not yet stopped, with the previous catching his third teammate Kush Maini on lap 23 – and the race time now modified to a certainty time.

With the clock ticking all the way down to five minutes, Bortoleto threw his Invicta into the inside turn one to pass Durksen, who had not yet stopped, giving himself a likelihood to achieve the advantage needed to offset the penalty. At the tip of this lap he had a lead of 1.7 seconds over Aron, most significantly by stopping him from using DRS any further.

With two minutes left, Bearman lost the result in Bortoleto, who had a 3.8-second advantage over third-placed Hadjar.

Despite a late battle with fellow Red Bull junior Oliver Goethe, Hadjar finished half a second ahead of Bortoleto's penalty and finished second.

The F2 season will end next week in Abu Dhabi, with only Bortoleto and Hadjar in contention for the title.

F2 Qatar race results