Robert Shwartzman took his fourth Formula 2 victory of the year in the Bahrain sprint race as Schumacher took advantage of drama for his rivals to extend his championship lead.
Nikita Mazepin finished second behind his Russian compatriot for Hitech, while a late problem allowed Louis Deletraz to snatch the final podium spot from Charouz team-mate Pedro Piquet.
But it was a bad day for title contender Virtuosi’s Callum Ilott, a collision with Carlin’s Yehan Daruvala while battling title rival Schumacher dropped him down the field.
Fellow championship contender Yuki Tsunoda also suffered a blow to his title hopes. As Shwartzman led away from pole for Prema, ART’s Marcus Armstrong tagged the rear of second-placed Tsunoda’s Carlin into turn one, causing a puncture for the Honda protege and an early pitstop.
Shwartzman built a 2.5 second advantage during the early stages over Armstrong, but was pegged back by a safety car period when Theo Pourchaire stopped at turn one after the fire extinguisher went off in the cockpit of his HWA car.
But the Ferrari junior was able to build another commanding avantage following the restart to take the win and keep his faint championship hopes alive.
Behind Shwartzman it proved to be a typically frenetic F2 race. Mazepin recovered from a slow start to move up from fifth to third early on, exchanging places with Schumacher a couple of times before passing Saturday’s feature race podium finisher Daruvala.
After the safety car period, Schumacher came under pressure from title rival Ilott for fifth. Into turn ten, Ilott lunged up the inside as Schumacher locked up, but got sideways and slammed into the back of fourth-placed Daruvala, while Piquet took advantage of the mele to nip past Schumacher.
Daruvala was out on the spot, causing a virtual safety car period, while Ilott was forced into the pits for a front wing change, and would visit the pits a second time later on after being awarded a drive-through penalty for the incident.
When racing resumed, Armstrong ran wide, allowing Mazepin to move into second, and he then lost third to Piquet.
Schumacher started coming under further pressure from behind as he tried to take advantage of Ilott and Tsunoda’s woes.. After being passed for sixth by Ilott’s Virtuosi team-mate Guanyu Zhou, it looked like Schumacher may slip out of the points. But a big squabble behind him between ART’s Christian Lundgaard and Saturday’s feature race winner Felipe Drugovich allowed Schumacher to pull a gap.
But Louis Deletraz, who had taken advantage of the safety car period to pit for fresh tyres was flying, moving up to eighth, before taking Schumacher for sixth. He then picked off Zhou and Armstrong before taking third when team-mate Piquet’s car slowed when within touching distance of a first F2 podium.
Armstrong took fourth ahead of Zhou, while Lundgaard took sixth from Schumacher on the last lap, with Drugovich taking the final point for eighth.
Schumacher extended his championship lead by two points, and heads to the season finale next weekend on the Bahrain outer loop with a 14-point advantage over Ilott.
Race result (23 laps)
| 1 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | 43m15.992s |
| 2 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech | +5.283s |
| 3 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | +6.472s |
| 4 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +10.655s |
| 5 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | +15.133s |
| 6 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +18.564s |
| 7 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | +20.741s |
| 8 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | +23.510s |
| 9 | Roy Nissany | Trident | +25.352s |
| 10 | Artem Markelov | HWA | +31.150s |
| 11 | Marino Sato | Trident | +31.838s |
| 12 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +39.824s |
| 13 | Giuliano Alesi | MP Motorsport | +43.904s |
| 14 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | +44.427s |
| 15 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | +49.148s |
| 16 | Callum Ilott | Virtuosi | +1m03.463s |
| 17 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +1 lap |
| 18 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | +1 lap |
| 19 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +2 laps |
| DNF | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech | |
| DNF | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | |
| DNF | Theo Pourchaire | HWA |
Featured image credit: @fia_f2 official twitter
