Lundgaard avenges feature race misfortune to dominate at Mugello

Renault Academy driver Christian Lundgaard was the clear leader yesterday before the late safety car saw him drop back but he made amends in the sprint race as he won by an outrageous fourteen seconds in the second FIA Formula 2 race of the weekend.

The Dane started third but didn’t stay there for long as he perfected the start to pass both front row starters Artem Markelov and Juri Vips. From there, he had the hammer down and when he finished his first lap, he was already two seconds clear before disappearing into the distance.

With his second victory of 2020, Lundgaard has fired himself well and truly into title contention as he also collected the two extra points for fastest lap on a maximum day in the Tuscan sun.

The closest car to Lundgaard was Louis Delétraz who simply had no answer to the eighteen-year-old’s race pace. The Swiss driver was actually fortunate to hold off Vips for second as the Estonian grew stronger as the race went on.

Mick Schumacher took the championship lead yesterday finishing fifth and his consistency was rewarded again as he came home fourth, just hanging on as Guanyu Zhou charged through the field to fifth from twentieth on the grid.

Zhou’s UNI-Virtuosi teammate and Schumacher’s main title rival Callum Ilott finished sixth after a troubled feature race 24 hours previous which is helpful in his bid to become F2 champion and an F1 driver in 2021.

A late virtual safety car was deployed after Hitech GP teammates Nikita Mazepin and Luca Ghiotto collided at turn one. The Italian tried to go round his teammate, who won Saturday’s feature race, but Mazepin locked up and ran well wide into his teammate, forcing Ghiotto into retirement.

That allowed a handful of drivers to pit for soft tyres in preparation for a late charge and it looked like Yuki Tsunoda would be the main challenger, but the Japanese driver misjudged how slow Felipe Drugovich was on very worn hard tyres and ran into the back of the Brazilian. Tsunoda was forced to pit with a damaged front wing leaving Marino Sato to take up the baton.

The Trident driver made some impressive decisive moves on his way to eight as he just missed out on passing Jehan Daruvala by three hundredths of a second on the line.

Robert Shwartzman finished ninth but scores no points which puts him firmly on the back foot in the chase for the 2020 FIA Formula 2 title.