Schumacher wins after pit-stop stall costs Ilott

It’s been a long wait, but Mick Schumacher has finally taken his first win of 2020 as championship leader Callum Ilott recovered from a pit-stop error which handed the German victory.

Ilott had a handy one and a half second lead when he came into the pits, but as he tried to pull away, the car stalled and he lost precious time which gave Schumacher a golden chance to earn his second FIA Formula 2 win.

Much of the victory was down to an awesome start as Schumacher jumped from seventh on the grid to second at turn one. The PREMA team then made no mistakes in the pit stop and he held a comfortable lead all the way to the chequered flag.

Ilott recovered to sixth and crucially, ahead of main title rival Robert Shwartzman who finished in ninth, agonisingly one position away from a reverse grid pole.

Standing alongside Schumacher on the podium was Luca Ghiotto and Christian Lundgaard. The Dane in the ART held second for most of the race but Ghiotto charged late to overtake Lundgaard with three laps to go.

Yuki Tsunoda took home yet more solid championship points in fourth as he continues to go almost under the radar in the title chase. He beat Guanyu Zhou to that fourth place as the Chinese driver looked to make up places late on thanks to the alternate strategy.

DAMS driver Dan Ticktum almost relegated Ilott to seventh at the end as he also attempted to make up places on the soft tyres at the end of the race. Louis Delétraz was again fairly anonymous but he did finish eighth and will start Sunday’s sprint race from reverse grid pole as a result.

Shwartzman couldn’t quite make the gap to Delétraz and won’t be keen on starting behind his teammate tomorrow. But he will be pleased to have scored points after starting fifteenth, he beat Jehan Daruvala who secured the final point.