MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich extended his FIA Formula 2 championship lead by climbing from 10th on the grid to win the feature race in Barcelona.
After triumphing in Saturday’s sprint race, Drugovich preserved his tyres better than anyone else in the first stint to claw his way into contention.
The Brazilian then passed polesitter Jack Doohan before taking victory by 5.6 seconds, but will face a post-race investigation for a potential pitlane infringement.
Doohan led the early stages for Virtuosi after resisting a challenge into turn one from ART’s Frederick Vesti, who had moved past Hitech GP’s Juri Vips off the line
Carlin’s Logan Sargeant took fourth away from Jehan Daruvala, who started on the harder compound tyre, while Drugovich passed his chief title rival Theo Pourchaire for seventh.
There was early drama for two of Red Bull’s junior drivers which triggered a safety car period. Prema’s Daruvala slowed from fifth with an issue, and was hit from behind by DAMS’s Ayuma Iwasa, who was forced to pit for a new front wing.
The race resumed on lap seven, with Doohan pulling out almost a 2s advantage over Vesti, with Vips the first the lead group to pit on lap eight. But the Estonian was delayed by a slow front-left tyre change and dropped out of contention over the remainder of the 37-lap encounter.
Doohan maintained his advantage over Vesti once they had both pitted for hard tyres. Drugovich crucially managed to stretch is soft tyres five laps further before pitting from the lead, rejoining in a net third place behind the pair.
Charouz’s Enzo Fittipaldi had a spell in the lead on the hard tyres before being passed by fellow alternate strategy runner Clement Novalak.
Doohan eventually moved back to the front, while Drugovich used his fresher rubber to eradicate a 5s deficit, having dispatched Vesti shortly after his stop.
Drugovich then took the lead with 11 laps remaining, with Doohan offering little resistance. Having been placed under investigation by race control, Drugovich then pushed to build the gap until the chequered flag to mitigate any potential penalty.
Vesti took a maiden podium in third, 17.5s further behind, with Sargeant coming home fourth. After making his mandatory stop, Novalak stormed up the order on soft tyres to finish fifth for MP, with Fittipaldi and Armstrong doing the same to take sixth and seventh.
Pourchaire lost out to the trio in the closing stages and finished eighth, ahead of Carlin’s Liam Lawson and DAMS’s Roy Nissany.
Prema’s Dennis Hauger had another difficult race, coming home 13th after a lap one collision and a later excursion through the gravel.
Featured image credit: @formula2 official twitter
