Felipe Drugovich dominated Sunday’s FIA Formula 2 sprint race at Barcelona to give MP Motorsport its second victory of the weekend.
After team-mate Nobuharu Matsushita won Saturday’s feature race, Drugovich took his second sprint race win of the season by passing polesitter Luca Ghiotto into turn one before controlling the remainder of the race.
Championship leader Callum Ilott muscled his way around the outside of fellow Ferrari junior Schumacher at turn one into third at the start, while Virtuosi team-mate Guanyu Zhou was also on the move, passing Robert Shwartzman around the outside of turn three before doing the same to Yuki Tsunoda two corners later to run in fifth place.
Drugovich pulled a 3s gap to Hitech’s Ghiotto early on before the gap levelled out but, as Ghiotto started to go through a difficult phase with his tyres, was able to extend the gap to more than 8s.
A train of cars had started to form behind Ghiotto by the halfway mark, headed by Ilott. The Virtuosi driver tried to make a move around the outside for second into turn one, but Ghiotto was able to hold on.
Behind, Mazepin used DRS to take eighth from Shwartzman on the pit straight, while Carlin’s Tsunoda pulled a similar move on Zhou for fifth. Shwartzman pitted for fresh tyres, a move that didn’t pay off: the championship contender finishing out of the points in 13th.
With six laps to go it all started to go wrong for Virtuosi. Zhou suffered a puncture and dropped down the order while Ilott started to run out of grip on his tyres.
After dropping off the back of Ghiotto, Ilott was passed in quick succession by Schumacher and Tsunoda, before losing further positions to Matsushita, Nikita Mazepin and Pedro Piquet.
Ilott lost eighth and the final points-paying spot with two corners of the race remaining to title rival Christian Lundgaard, but gained the position back following the chequered flag after Lundgaard was penalised for leaving the track while making the overtake
Ghiotto finished 9.5 seconds behind Drugovich in second, with Schumacher taking the final spot on the podium for Prema.
Tsunoda finished fourth, 1s ahead of Matsushita, with Mazepin (Hitech) and Piquet (Charouz) taking sixth and seventh respectively.
DAMS driver Sean Geleal did not take part in the race after suffering a small fracture in his back after getting airborne in a last lap incident with Campos driver Jack Aitken in Saturday’s feature race.
Race result (26 laps)
| 1 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 41m55.669s |
| 2 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech GP | +9.536s |
| 3 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | +10.956s |
| 4 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | +14.924s |
| 5 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | +19.921s |
| 6 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | +23.231s |
| 7 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +24.528s |
| 8 | Callum Ilott | Virtuosi | +29.718s |
| 9 | Louis Delétraz | Charouz | +31.973s |
| 10 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +32.155s |
| 11 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +34.196s |
| 12 | Roy Nissany | Trident | +34.822s |
| 13 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | +41.254s |
| 14 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | +41.996s |
| 15 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +43.413s |
| 16 | Artem Markelov | HWA | +45.618s |
| 17 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | +46.219s |
| 18 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +48.431s |
| 19 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA | +54.736s |
| 20 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | +1m09.082s |
| 21 | Marino Sato | Trident | +1m14.667s |
Feature image credit: @fia_f2 official twitter
