Despite two safety cars, the HTP Junior drivers hung on for their second one-two finish of the weekend at the Nurburgring. Marvin Dienst again got the jump on Janneau Esmeijer at the start with the pair running off for another comfortable win at the Nurburgring.
The race had been neutralised after one lap after the cars bunched up at the final chicane. Many cars started to run wide or miss braking points in the 34-strong field. This came to a head when Cedric Piro hit Benjamin Mazatis spinning the Mucke Motorsport car.
This counteracted behind with Robin Brezina launching onto the back of Toni Wolf, seeing both retire. Mazatis would also get beached on the kurb seeing the safety car being called for the first time this weekend.
However; this wouldn’t be the only safety car with another being called with seven minutes to go after Kim-Luis Schramm lunged on Giuliano Raucci, spun and was hit by Michael Waldherr, who broke his front suspension, leaving Waldherr stranded on track.
Behind the HTP duo was Robert Shwartzmann who made the most of a battle in the opening corners to take third by the end of the first lap. He would remain unchallenged over the course of the race.
The start had seen Lando Norris make a good start, but was ran onto the tarmac at the end of the Mercedes Arena, he fell to seventh by the end of lap one, but would eventually work his way back up to fifth.
David Beckmann would take the rookie victory in fourth though. He made a good get away and would leap past Joel Eriksson at the restart to claim fifth. He would inherit fourth on the final lap after Ralf Aron ran into trouble, ensuring the Estonian would only finish seventh.
Mick Schumacher continued his form this weekend. Having battled with Norris most of the race, the pair sailed past Eriksson allowing the German to have a relatively quiet race to finish sixth.
Outside of the top seven, Joey Mawson made another great recovery to slightly help his championship chances, while behind him, Maerk Bockmann also sailed past Eriksson after the second safety car to claim ninth.
Eriksson, who would eventually round out the top ten, will know that he’ll need to improve having seen his race collapse after he’d been running fifth. He no longer leads the championship with Dienst now the leader and the man on form.
Race three starts Sunday, 15:35 local time.
