Report: Podium finish for Luke in Baku Sprint
Luke’s Sprint Race podium finish was the highlight of a mixed weekend in Baku
Published
22 SEP 2025
Est. reading time
2 min
A rollercoaster weekend in Azerbaijan saw Luke place P2 in Saturday’s Sprint, before enduring a more challenging Feature Race the following day.
Round 12 got off to a positive start when the 23-year-old finished P4 during Free Practice and P6 in Qualifying, to boost hopes of a point-scoring performance by the Caspian Sea.
And so it proved, as Luke secured a podium placing in the Sprint Race — part of a one-two for Hitech TGR, with Dino Beganovic taking top spot.
The Cheshire native’s position was boosted by a pair of late overtakes past Alexander Dunne and Sebastián Montoya, to climb from sixth to second in the pecking order.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hitech TGR’s Deputy Team Principal Clive Hatton was delighted with Luke’s display.
“Luke did a great job as well [as Beganovic],” he said, when speaking after the race.
“He avoided one or two collisions into Turn 1. It wasn’t easy, got overtaken a few times, but he did some overtakes as well, so he held on in there.”
That result added eight points to Luke’s total, as he temporarily brought the gap to championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli down to 17 points.
But a difficult Feature Race counteracted some of that good work, as the Williams Driver Academy racer was only able to finish P19 on Sunday.
A slow start combined with losing out during mandatory stops saw Luke drop to P16, prior to a collision with Invicta Racing’s Roman Staněk that proved to be the event’s decisive moment.
The British driver was forced to stop on the track and never recovered — heading back to the pit lane before coming back out a lap behind.
No further points were added on Sunday, then, but Luke only lost six points in the battle for top spot across the weekend, with Fornaroli placing P5 in both races.
There’s certainly still all to play for, when the action moves to Lusail for the season’s penultimate round in late November.
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