Friday during the qualifying session, Paul Aron crushed the competition by taking pole position more than three tenths ahead of Bortoleto and Victor Martins, and relegating the fourth, rookie Dino Beganovich, to almost seven tenths. But this Saturday the sprint race takes place, and we therefore find the tenth of these qualifications on pole, namely Bearman, ahead of Hadjar.
The Briton got off to a good start and retained the lead of the race but Hadjar was pressing behind him and overtook him on the second lap. Behind them, Martins is struggling to try to maintain his third position, notably against Crawford, the first driver of the train of six single-seaters behind the Frenchman's ART. On the fifth lap, the engine of Goethe's MP exploded in smoke, it was obviously a retirement for the German driver and the virtual safety car was put in place.
When the green flag was waved again, Crawford resumed his attacks on Martins but the Frenchman resisted valiantly. The fight is fierce, and Crawford complains about it on the radio when he has just come out wide. In front of them, Hadjar begins to lose time against Bearman, who is gradually catching up. In fact, the gap goes from more than 3 seconds to less than two seconds in just a few laps.
We enter the last ten laps and Bearman is now almost in the DRS zone of the Campos d'Hadjar. But Hadjar's last sector is often good and allows him to delay the deadline. At the start of the 17th lap, Crawford finally found the opening on Martins and took third place, immediately escaping far ahead of the Frenchman who continued to block his competitors behind. But Martins' tires seemed to have given up the ghost and the ART driver lost to Verschoor, then Aron and Bortoleto.
In the lead, Hadjar held on and despite the DRS Bearman was not yet able to mount an attack. While Verschoor sets the best lap times, Aron tries to resist Bortoleto. Three laps from the checkered flag, Bearman attacks Hadjar for the first time… and it goes straight away! Trying to stay in the slipstream, the Frenchman then spun, letting Crawford and Verschoor pass him in front.
In the peloton, Maini and Antonelli are fighting but Antonelli comes across a slow Martins and the Italian and the Indian hang on, triggering a safety car to conclude this race. The race ends like this and it is Bearman who wins ahead of Crawford and Verschoor. Hadjar finished fourth but lost very precious little points which could have allowed him to overtake Bortoleto in the championship. Aron finished fifth ahead of Bortoleto, Miyata and Maloney.
