Having achieved his first podium in Hungary, Nikita Mazepin went one better to cruise to his first FIA Formula 2 victory in the feature race at Silverstone.
The Russian followed Mick Schumacher through at the start as Felipe Drugovich bogged down and Callum Ilott’s second place was vacant after an issue on the formation lap. When the DRS opened, Mazepin made his move on Schumacher and he never looked back.
He had to watch his Hitech GP teammate Luca Ghiotto take the team’s first win in F2 at the previous round but Mazepin has shown huge improvements and got his just rewards with victory.
Second across the line was Guanyu Zhou who made the alternate strategy work to go from eighth to second and finally score the points his speed has warranted.
He was joined on the podium by Carlin’s Yuki Tsunoda who completed a last lap pass on Christian Lundgaard for third. Tsunoda had looked like the cream of the crop in practice but suffered from a poor qualifying meaning third was the maximum he could achieve.
Perhaps the drive of the day though came behind Lundgaard. Finishing fifth from the pit lane was Ilott who not only had incredible pace, but was composed and clean in his overtakes to recover in a way only champions can.
Louis Delétraz secured more solid points in sixth ahead of Drugovich and Dan Ticktum who will start the sprint race from pole as a result of finishing eighth.
Schumacher simply had no pace despite a great qualifying and was fortunate to finish ninth and score two points but his PREMA teammate and championship leader Robert Shwartzman continued his torrid weekend scoring no points in fourteenth.
Nobuharu Matsushita completed the points scorers in tenth, just edging out Pedro Piquet for the final point.
Pos. | Name | Team | Laps/Gap |
1 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | 29 Laps |
2 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | +5.323 |
3 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | +7.406 |
4 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +8.094 |
5 | Callum Ilott | UNI-Virtuosi | +10.764 |
6 | Louis Delétraz | Charouz | +16.121 |
7 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | +18.136 |
8 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +20.580 |
9 | Mick Schumacher | PREMA | +24.742 |
10 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | +25.319 |
11 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +26.230 |
12 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | +26.527 |
13 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +26.744 |
14 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | +30.767 |
15 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | +31.585 |
16 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +37.827 |
17 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech GP | +45.263 |
18 | Artem Markelov | HWA Racelab | +53.528 |
19 | Guiliano Alesi | HWA Racelab | +60.579 |
20 | Marino Sato | Trident | +72.128 |
21 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | +87.775 |
22 | Roy Nissany | Trident | DNF (Mechanical) |