Red Bull junior Juri Vips took his first Formula 2 win in the second Baku sprint race, after overtaking Bent Viscaal and David Beckmann early on and surviving multiple safety car restarts.
Viscaal started from reverse grid pole ahead of Beckmann and Vips. While Viscaal got a slower start than the others, an aggressive chop to the inside of Turn 1 ensured he stayed ahead, although Beckmann was close enough to keep up the attack.
But although the leaders got away cleanly, there were several incidents in the midpack behind them. Championship leader Guanyu Zhou locked up with a stuck throttle pedal as he came into Turn 1, tagging Dan Ticktum into a spin and putting himself out the race. Just ahead of them, Theo Pourchaire ran into Ralph Boschung and lost his front wing.
Lirim Zendelli made it three cars out of the race in the opening corners and brought out the safety car, but not before Beckmann passed Viscaal for the lead at Turn 4 and Jehan Daruvala took fourth place from Marcus Armstrong.
At the restart on lap 3, Daruvala initially took third from Vips, but Vips recovered the position a few corners later, before passing Viscaal for second on lap 5. Another safety car was deployed on lap 6 when Roy Nissany hit Richard Verschoor at Turn 3 and put him into the wall. Vips again lost a position at the restart as Viscaal resumed second, but Vips repassed the Trident shortly after to continue pursuing Beckmann.
After losing out to Vips a second time, Viscaal then slid backwards as he was passed by both Daruvala and Armstrong. Viscaal tried to retake fourth from Armstrong on lap 8, but as they both locked up heading through Turn 4, Armstrong ended up in the wall and brought out a Virtual Safety Car.
When the race resumed on lap 9, Vips set the fastest lap and closed the gap to Beckmann. The Estonian then took the lead on lap 11 and immediately starting to pull away, as a DRS train began to form behind Beckmann.
But although Vips moved 3.5 seconds clear of Beckmann by the chequered flag, Beckmann himself was able to hold onto second place for his second podium of the season. Daruvala finished third, and Viscaal came home fourth.
Robert Shwartzman took fifth place, after making an impressive jump from tenth to sixth at the start and benefiting from Armstrong’s crash. Ticktum — taking advantage of the multiple safety cars — recovered from his lap 1 spin to finish sixth, while Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri navigated the early carnage to round out the points after starting on the penultimate row of the grid.
