Ticktum takes lights-to-flag victory on home soil ahead of the Charging Lundgaard

Britain’s Daniel Ticktum took his first FIA Formula 2 victory from reverse grid pole as he had just enough of a gap to hold off the charging Christian Lundgaard.

Callum Ilott had been the man looking most likely to challenge Ticktum but the fellow Brit threw away all his good work by spinning at Vale and stalling the car. This brought out the safety car and then strategy came into play.

As the cars came through the pit lane to avoid the recovery of Ilott’s car, Lundgaard pitted from second for new medium tyres and dropped to fifth, many other drivers took the same route hoping for a late charge forward.

Lundgaard managed to overtake Nikita Mazepin, Guanyu Zhou and Louis Delétraz in the three laps after the restart, but couldn’t catch the superb Ticktum. Just 0.376 seconds separated the leading duo at the chequered flag, and it was the second time in as many sprint races where someone who did not pit just held off the challenge of someone who did.

Delétraz was able to complete the podium as Zhou had a big spin at Becketts to lose a solid top five result. He dropped outside the points as a result of his mistake and meant the positive pace of UNI-Virtuosi went unrewarded on Sunday.

Another driver who pitted and then soared was Jehan Daruvala who flew the flag for Carlin after Yuki Tsunoda was spun on the opening lap and had to retire. The Indian passed Mazepin on the last lap as the Russian finished fifth.

Felipe Drugovich dropped back from his front row start to finish sixth ahead of his MP Motorsport team-mate Nobuharu Matsushita while Campos Racing‘s Jack Aitken beat Zhou to the final point.

Prema Racing had another poor showing on Sunday, pitting one lap too late under the safety car to see both drivers score zero points. Robert Shwartzman still holds the championship lead despite a pointless weekend, the Russian finishing thirteenth just ahead of team-mate Mick Schumacher.

Another driver to suffer in the pits was DAMS’ Sean Gelael, who was released from his pit box before the front-left tyre was correctly attached. He was advised to stop at the end of the pit lane to retire, although the team are likely to face a penalty for the an unsafe release.