Drugovich takes lights-to-flag maiden F2 victory

In his first weekend in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich dominated a safety car riddled sprint race to score maximum points.

The Brazilian, who only finished in the points once in F3 last year, surprised many on Friday by qualifying on the front row and he backed up that impressive performance to convert reverse grid pole into a race win.

He perfected all three safety car restarts caused by cars either breaking down or being involved in contact to maintain a comfortable gap to Louis Delétraz who is still searching for his first F2 win.

Dan Ticktum scored his first podium in the series as he defended from Robert Shwartzman and Christian Lundgaard all the way to the chequered flag. The Brit was initially fourth until Marcus Armstrong’s ART died on him while the New Zealander was in third.

Behind the top five, a monumental defence from Nobuharu Matsushita kept Mick Schumacher and the train of cars behind at bay with Jack Aitken beating feature race winner Callum Ilott to the final point.

Guiliano Alesi was a star of the feature race but he was first to retire in a fiery blaze, that brought out the first safety car under which Sean Gelael’s DAMS machine gave up on him.

Luca Ghiotto’s luckless weekend was rounded off as he was hit into a spin by Jehan Daruvala and the Italian couldn’t get going again.