Pourchaire, Bortoleto and Harry King triumph in Sunday support races at F1 Bahrain GP

Pourchaire, Bortoleto and Harry King triumph in Sunday support races at F1 Bahrain GP

• Pourchaire flies to dominant win in F2 Feature Race
• Bortoleto wins season-opening F3 Feature Race
• Harry King wraps up perfect weekend in Porsche sprints

The support race programme at the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2023 wrapped up today at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), with Theo Pourchaire, Gabriel Bortoleto and Harry King all emerging triumphant in their respective championships.

Pourchaire won the season-opening Formula 2 Feature Race and Bortoleto was victorious in the Formula 3 Feature. King, meanwhile, clinched first place in the weekend’s second race of the Porsche Sprint Challenge Middle East.

Pourchaire flies to dominant win in F2 Feature Race

Pourchaire powered to a dominant victory in the F2 Feature Race.

Starting from pole, the ART Grand Prix ace held on to his lead masterfully, giving up first place only for his mandatory pit stop but regaining the advantage just two laps after heading back out onto the track.

From there, Pourchaire ran his own race and built a massive gap of nearly 20 seconds from the rest of the field en route to taking the chequered flag after 32 laps.

Pourchaire won in one hour one minute 10.926 seconds. He was a clear 19.666 seconds ahead of runner-up and F2 Sprint Race winner Ralph Boschung of Campos Racing.

Zane Maloney of Rodin Carlin completed the podium placers 31.587s behind.

Kush Maini of Campos Racing was fourth, Richard Verschoor of Van Amersfoort Racing fifth, and Arthur Leclerc of DAMS sixth.

The top 10 was rounded out by Isack Hadjar of Hitech Pulse-Eight, Ayumu Iwasa of DAMS, Enzo Fittipaldi of Rodin Carlin and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Juan Manuel Correa—all of whom claimed all-important points.

The F2 field will be back on track later this month for the 2023 season’s second round in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

This year’s campaign features 14 rounds in all, culminating with the season finale in Abu Dhabi in November.

Bortoleto wins season-opening F3 Feature Race

Bortoleto led teammate Oliver Goethe to a Trident one-two in F3’s season-opening Feature Race.

Bortoleto won in a total race time of 44 minutes 33.107 seconds after 22 laps, taking the chequered flag 0.869 seconds ahead of Goethe. Dino Beganovic of PREMA Racing joined them on the podium in third after finishing 1.109s adrift.

Bortoleto grabbed the lead from pole-sitter Gabriele Mini of Hitech Pulse-Eight as the field headed into turn one right after the start.

The pair were engaged in a close fight midway through, but Bortoleto eventually powered to the win while Mini was handed a five-second time penalty, dropping him in the final classification to eighth.