The rolling start procedure in the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Championship’s race at Red Bull Ring didn’t give a dramatic Lap 1 battle for the fans, but the feature race still had plenty to talk about with ART Grand Prix’s George Russell winning from Carlin’s Lando Norris.
The ART driver held on to his lead from Norris with his teammate Sergio Sette Camara behind followed by ART’s Jack Aitken. Trident’s Arjun Maini though lost couple of places to Arden’s Maximilian Gunther and Charouz Louis Deletraz owing to the soft tyre strategy for the Indian.
However, before things could stabalise, Ralph Boschung’s MP Motorsport car came to a halt resulting in a safety car period. Immediately, the supersoft tyre runners dived into the pits causing a mayhem but handing the drivers a free stop.
Among the drivers who are under investigation for the pit stops are Gunther, Deletraz and DAMS’ Alexander Albon. Meanwhile, Maini took the lead of the race from Prema’s Sean Gelael and Russian Time’s Artem Markelov – the three drivers to have started on the soft tyres.
The Haas junior built on a lead there on as Markelov cleared Gelael for second, who was further demoted to fourth after Russell made it through as well. It seemed like, the longer stint for Maini and Markelov would just work out well for a good points finish but not for long.
While battling with Gunther and Deletraz, Aitken lost out and was forced to retire which promoted another safety car period – thereby ending any chance of Maini and Markelov making the longer stin strategy stick.
Post the re-start, Markelov dived into the inside of Maini in a surprise move to take the lead with Russell then also finding a way past the Indian. The Trident driver lost further positions and eventually pitted on Lap 32 along with Gelael.
However, it was too late by then as both of them joined the field at the back, a long way off to recover in the seven laps remaining. Indeed, Gelael was 14th and Maini 15th only after running in the front for long. Russell, meanwhile, took the win comfortably.
It was Norris in the end in second after he managed to clear MP Motorpsort’s Roberto Merhi with Charouz Racing’s Antonio Fuoco also taking the Spaniard to complete the podium positions. The Spaniard though had a thrilling race which involved some breathtaking passes on Gunther and Norris.
After struggling in the race early on, Albon managed to finish fifth with Camara in sixth – the Brazilian losing out in the pit stop melee. The Thai driver cleared Camara on the last lap. Russian Time’s Tadasuke Makino finished seventh for a front-row start.
On pole for Sunday’s sprint race will be Markelov who remarkably made three places post his late pit stop to not only score points but also be in a commanding position in the second ace of the weekend. The Russian cleared Gunther, Arden’s Nirei Fukuzumi and Trident’s Santino Ferrucci in the process.
In all of this, Gunther was the one to lose out more with Fukuzumi and Ferrucci completing the Top 10 as DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi also passed Gunther on the last lap with the Arden driver only finishing 0.7s ahead of Campos’ Luca Ghiotto.
UPDATE: Gunther was handed a 20-second time penalty for the pit incident when he was released on the path of Deletraz and Albon. In order to avoid the collision, Gunther accidentally ran over the air line in Campos’ pit, which knocked down a mechanic as well.
Fortunately, there was no injury. But the stewards held Gunther responsible and as a result of the penalty, the German dropped to the back of the field promoting Ghiotto to 12th followed by Gelael and Maini.