Norman Nato took his second Formula Renault 3.5 Series victory of the season after making a brilliant start to jump from third to first on the first lap, and then proceeded to hold off the challenge of Roberto Merhi for the duration of the race in Hungary.
The Frenchman, driving for DAMS, even had to battle through a safety car period, caused by a first lap crash between Sergey Sirotkin, Nicholas Latifi, William Buller and Oscar Tunjo that saw the latter’s car being flipped upside down. Luckily for everyone involved, they were able to walk away unscathed.
Merhi’s runners-up spot for Zeta Corse meant he has closed the gap at the top of the championship to Carlos Sainz Jr to only 16 points with only four races of the season to go. His best opportunity of taking over the lead from Nato was after the safety car restart, but the DAMS driver withstood the challenge around the outside of turns one and two.
Pierre Gasly took his second podium finish of the weekend with third for Arden Motorsport, and closed the gap on the leaders over the final number of laps like he had done in race one, but was unable to make a move on Merhi despite a mistake a few laps from the end when the Spaniard cut the chicane.
Oliver Rowland was a distant fourth for Fortec Motorsports, and was forced to hold off the challenge of Meindert van Buuren of Pons Racing, who had his best race of the season by far in fifth.
Sainz Jr was sixth but was unable to get close to van Buuren ahead of him, and in the closing laps was forced instead to concentrate on holding off the Lotus of Matthieu Vaxiviere, who had made a later pit stop.
Jazeman Jaafar took eighth for ISR Racing ahead of Marco Sorensen of Tech 1 Racing, while Will Stevens had a quiet race for Strakka Racing and finished down in tenth.
Esteban Ocon failed to start due to the damage caused in his heavy qualifying crash, but will be back in the Comtec Racing car for the next event at Paul Ricard in two weeks time.
Hungaroring Race 2 Result
POS | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME/Laps |
1 | Norman Nato | FRA | DAMS | 42m35.846s |
2 | Roberto Merhi | ESP | Zeta Corse | +0.424s |
3 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | Arden Motorsport | +2.819s |
4 | Oliver Rowland | GBR | Fortec Motorsports | +12.539s |
5 | Meindert van Buuren | NED | Pons Racing | +14.193s |
6 | Carlos Sainz Jr | ESP | DAMS | +16.114s |
7 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | FRA | Lotus | +17.077s |
8 | Jazeman Jaafar | MAL | ISR | +21.889s |
9 | Marco Sorensen | DEN | Tech 1 Racing | +22.937s |
10 | Will Stevens | GBR | Strakka Racing | +23.826s |
11 | Pietro Fantin | BRZ | International Draco Racing | +24.877s |
12 | Beitske Visser | NED | AV Formula | +28.338s |
13 | Matias Lainé | FIN | Strakka Racing | +29.576s |
14 | Marlon Stockinger | PHI | Lotus | +30.002s |
15 | Zoel Amberg | SWI | AV Formula | +30.563s |
16 | Roman Mavlanov | RUS | Zeta Corse | +38.888s |
17 | Cameron Twynham | GBR | Comtec Racing | +38.957s |
18 | Nicholas Latifi | CAN | Tech 1 Racing | +40.923s |
19 | Luca Ghiotto | ITA | International Draco Racing | +43.279s |
RET | Sergey Sirotkin | RUS | Fortec Motorsports | 1 Lap |
RET | Oscar Tunjo | COL | Pons Racing | 0 Laps |
RET | William Buller | GBR | Arden Motorsport | 0 Laps |
DNS | Esteban Ocon | FRA | Comtec Racing | 0 Laps |