Alexander Albon capitalised on a slow pit stop from George Russell to claim his second victory of the season at a hot Silverstone on Saturday afternoon.
Russell had led from the start but suffered a slow pit stop thanks to a left front tyre gun issue, with the ART Grand Prix driver unable to get away until Albon had gone passed him. To rub salt into his wounds, a five second time penalty was handed out to the Briton for speeding in the pit lane.
Once in the lead, Albon was untroubled despite Russell having been the quicker driver all weekend, and despite a couple of Virtual Safety Car periods, the DAMS driver took the win by 4.7 seconds from the Briton.
Despite the penalty, Russell was able to retain second as Antonio Fuoco finished more than eighteen seconds down on Albon in third to give Charouz Racing System the final spot on the podium, despite the Ferrari Driver Academy member complaining on the opening lap of having power issues.
Fuoco had been under pressure from Sergio Sette Câmara for the final spot on the podium, but unfortunately for the Carlin Motorsport driver, he was forced to retire from the race after an engine failure that ended with a few flames at the back of his car.
Louis Delétraz came out on top of an exciting battle for fourth with a final lap pass on Luca Ghiotto approaching Stowe corner to give Charouz more to cheer about, although Ghiotto will also be pleased to claim fifth for Campos Vexatec Racing after starting down in ninth after a disappointing display in Qualifying.
Shadowing the pair at the end was Artem Markelov, but the Russian Time driver was unable to better sixth, while Nyck de Vries claimed seventh for Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing, keeping a watching brief of his own on the trio ahead of him.
Jack Aitken finished on the road in eighth that would have given him reverse grid pole position in the second ART, but the Briton’s torrid weekend continue as he was handed not one, but two five-second penalties, one for speeding in the pit lane like his team-mate Russell, and another for an incident behind the Virtual Safety Car. The combined ten-second loss meant that he dropped to thirteenth, promoting Maximilian Günther of BWT Arden to eighth.
Tadasuke Makino had finished ninth for Russian Time after being one of only two drivers to gamble on starting the race on the hard Pirelli tyre along with Ralph Boschung, but like Aitken was penalised for a VSC offence, dropping him outside the points to twelfth, meaning Boschung of MP Motorsport claimed ninth ahead of Lando Norris of Carlin.
Norris will be happy to have salvaged at least a point from the day after seeing a strong race ruined by an issue during his pit stop, with the Briton falling right to the bottom of the order as a result. He had good pace throughout the second half of the race and was able to make a number of positions up, but despite that he was forced to rely on the penalties for Aitken and Makino to claim tenth, ahead of Roberto Merhi.
Norris also survived small contact with Sean Gelael at Brooklands on lap twenty-one, with the Indonesian spinning out of the race as a result and causing the second of the two VSC’s, the first of which was brought out when Nirei Fukuzumi’s terrible weekend continued when he stopped his BWT Arden car on the Hangar Straight.
Classified behind the penalised Makino and Aitken ultimately was Arjun Maini, who had a mixed afternoon in his Trident. The Indian racer had been running inside the top eight in the opening laps, trading places with Markelov, but fell down the order after his pit stop and was then pushed off the road by team-mate Santino Ferrucci. The American was handed a five-second penalty for the offence.
Silverstone Feature Race Result
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