Jordan King held off the challenge of Luca Ghiotto and survived a late race rain shower to claim his second consecutive Sprint race victory at Silverstone on Sunday morning.
The British driver led away from pole position and looked to be in complete control, only for Ghiotto to drive his best race of the season so far to put the Racing Engineering driver under pressure, only then to fall away again having taken too much out of his tyres.
But it was not over though when the gap closed again to around half a second on the final laps as the rain began to fall, with King and everyone else struggling around on used slick tyres on a track getting wetter by the minute.
Ghiotto’s runners-up spot was amazing in its own right, having started Saturday’s Feature race from the back of the field to finish fifth, and despite losing a few spots on the opening lap, he was able to put his Trident into position on the podium, making passes on Norman Nato, Oliver Rowland and Nobuharu Matsushita on his way to challenging for the victory.
Rowland secured third for MP Motorsport after Matsushita made a mistake at the end of the Wellington Straight, dropping to fifth behind Antonio Giovinazzi as well, with the Prema Racing driver finishing right on Rowland’s tail at the chequered flag.
Behind Matsushita was Russian Time’s Raffaele Marciello, who was part of a multi-car battle for position at the lower end of the points scorers, while the top eight was completed by Pierre Gasly of Prema Racing and Marvin Kirchhöfer of Carlin.
Sergio Canamasas survived a lurid last lap slide at Stowe to finish just outside the points in ninth in the second Carlin, with Nicholas Latifi, Arthur Pic, Artem Markelov, Mitch Evans and Alex Lynn all finishing in close formation, with everyone between Marciello and Lynn battling hard and switching positions on almost every lap.
Nato was ahead of the battle and pulling away from Marciello before ending his race in the gravel trap at the end of the Wellington Straight with two laps remaining, eliminating himself out of a good points haul.
Silverstone Sprint Race Result
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