Charles Leclerc has grabbed the top spot in this morning’s FIA Formula 2 Championship free practice session at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, setting the pace once more despite a problem with his extinguisher meaning he missed most of the session while he team replaced the unit to lead the way ahead of Antonio Fuoco and Oliver Rowland.

The Monegasque driver stopped the clocks at 1:58.177 early in the session, which took place under warm and sunny conditions, usurping Gustav Malja and Rowland from the top of the timesheets and setting a target for his rivals to close.

The Briton closed to three tenths of Leclerc’s time two minutes later, with Fuoco shutting the gap down to a tenth just as the fire extinguisher went off in his teammate’s cockpit, forcing him to pit earlier than planned.

The PREMA team swarmed the Monegasque’s car as they worked to remove the hard to access component while the rest of the field came into the pits for their scheduled stops before returning to the circuit for their race runs, with Leclerc unable to do anything other than watch on as the clock ticked down.

He was eventually able to return to the track, but with just 2 minutes remaining in the session Leclerc was unable to cross the line before the chequered flag dropped: his rivals were unable to beat his best time but will have learned a lot about their cars for tomorrow’s race, with the Ferrari Academy driver now forced to use part of this afternoon’s qualifying session to pick up the information he missed this morning.

Behind the top 3 Artem Markelov, Ralph Boschung, Norman Nato, Nyck De Vries and Sean Gelael were well within a second of the top time and will be feeling positive about this afternoon’s qualifying session, with the potential of an advantage over the championship leader in the battle for pole position.

Preliminary Free Practice Classification

Nobuharu Matsushita has crushed his rivals with a stunning start before flying off into the distance to easily win this morning’s FIA Formula 2 sprint race at the Hungaroring, building a gap seemingly at will as he left the rest of the field behind to win by over 4 seconds from Oliver Rowland and Nyck De Vries. 

The win was set up at the start, which took place under gloriously sunny conditions: teammate Alexander Albon made a good start from pole but Matsushita’s was incredible from P4, zipping past Norman Nato and grabbing the inside line to lead into turn 1, while Luca Ghiotto went outside Albon and De Vries ran inside, squeezing the Thai driver and handing a line past for title rivals Rowland and Charles Leclerc as they headed down the hill towards turn 2. 

Matsushita simply built a lead over the rest of the field for lap after lap, with the others unable to make any headway on his pace. Further back a few squabbles resulted in place changes – Nicholas Latifi mugged Albon for P7 on lap 11, Artem Markelov squeezed inside Sean Gelael at turn 1 for P9 – but it was clear that, with the increasing temperatures, everyone was deeply into tyre management mode for the end of the race. 

It was lap 20 when the tyre differences began to show: De Vries sliced inside Ghiotto at turn 2 when the Italian went slightly wide for P2, and when Rowland and Leclerc also mugged him in the tight middle sector it was clear he had a problem, but it was smaller than Robert Visoiu’s: the Romanian slid into Nabil Jeffri before spinning into retirement, prompting a VSC period to clean up behind him. 

Just after the restart Jeffri was under pressure from Sergio Canamasas and ran wide over the large turn 4 kerbs before slicing back onto the track and into the back of the Spaniard, spinning him into retirement and bringing the VSC boards out once again, picking up a 10s penalty for his efforts. Ghiotto continued his slow descent after the restart, with Nato and Latifi (who came together on lap 24, damaging the Canadian’s front wing) running past the Italian as the laps ticked down. 

On the penultimate lap Rowland ran outside De Vries at turn 2 to grab the inside line for turn 3 to move up to P2, but the pair were unable to do anything about the superior pace of race winner Matsushita, who crossed the line to the applause of the paddock. Behind them Leclerc hung on despite a car problem and late pressure from Nato for 4th, with Latifi right behind them in P6, while Albon mugged Ghiotto late in the race for 7th position. 

Pole, a win and a second saw Rowland close the gap in the drivers’ championship to Leclerc, who now leads on 208 points to 158, with Markelov holding on to P3 on 123 points ahead of Latifi on 115, Ghiotto on 95 and Matsushita on 91, while in the teams’ championship DAMS have pulled away from PREMA Racing by 273 points to 231, ahead of RUSSIAN TIME on 218 and ART Grand Prix on 165 as they head into the summer break before the next round at Spa-Francorchamps.

Preliminary Sprint Race Classification 

Racing Engineering have announced that Nyck De Vries will join the team from this weekend at Spa Francorchamps to fill car #3, with Louis Deletraz moving in the opposite direction to race in car #18 for Rapax.

The Dutchman, already a race winner in his debut season in the FIA Formula 2 Championship following his victory in Monaco, was delighted with the move: “perhaps this move is a surprise in the middle of the season, but I am very excited to join Racing Engineering from Spa onwards.

“We have been in touch since 2015 and it is great to finally get the chance to work together as they have a very high level of professionalism and a great track record. I hope we will be able to turn around their momentum and score the successes they have always had.”

Alfonso de Orléans-Borbón, President of Racing Engineering, declared: “we have been closely following Nyck’s progress through the junior categories and have been in close contact for several seasons now, he is an exceptional young man, very professional and dedicated.

“The entire Racing Engineering team is excited to see him in our car and with two venues coming up now where we have historically celebrated fantastic results, I am very optimistic that we will see Nyck cross the finish line as one of the first on the track.”

Joining Deletraz at Rapax this weekend will be championship returnee Roberto Merhi, who will fill in for Sergio Canamasas who had to stand down for this round.

source: fiaformula2.com

Oliver Rowland has brought home exactly the result he was looking for after emerging on top of a chaotic FIA Formula 2 feature race at the Hungaroring, holding on from pole despite losing the lead early on and surviving a late attack from Artem Markelov to claim victory ahead of DAMS teammate Nicholas Latifi and Nyck De Vries. 

Anyone who was expecting a quiet race around the tight, technical circuit was soon proven wrong: track temperatures of 52˚ were soon matched by the heat of battle on it when Rowland made a good start but Markelov made a better one, with the Russian leading the Briton with his countryman Jordan King and Latifi into turn 1, while further back championship leader Charles Leclerc was up to P12 from the back and looking for more on the alternate tyre strategy. 

King was the first of the front runners to start losing his tyres, with Latifi easing by him on lap 8 just before the first stops started to come: King stopped 2 laps later with Rowland pitting on lap 11 and Markelov coming in to cover it next time through but emerging a few seconds behind the Briton. Meanwhile Alexander Albon was the first of the medium shod drivers, but Leclerc was determined to change that: the Monegasque pushed around the outside at turn 4 but got airborne over the new kerbs before biding his time to attack once more. 

Eventually the better car shone through: Albon braked a little early into turn 1 with Leclerc easily claiming his scalp at the next corner for the lead on lap 15, but the real fight looked to be over as Rowland led the pitted drivers and was only 10 seconds (and shrinking) back down the road and was claiming scalps, passing Sergio Sette Camara, Louis Deletraz and Albon with ease over the following laps before reclaiming the lead from Leclerc as the Monegasque stopped for fresh tyres on lap 23. 

Leclerc re-emerged in P11, which became P9 shortly afterwards as Robert Visoiu and Sergio Canamasas proved two can’t become one at the first corner, prompting a safety car to clean up the mess and bunching up the field as it did so. The race was live again on lap 27 with Leclerc on a charge, using his new tyres to blast past Luca Ghiotto, King and Gustav Malja at turn 1, with the Briton running over the turn 4 kerbs and clattering into Ralph Boschung, picking up a 10 second penalty as a result. 

Markelov had been protecting his tyres and was clearly the fastest man at the front of the race and tried to run inside Rowland on the front straight, but with the gap shrinking the Russian ran across the grass, over the kerbs and into the wall on the outside of turn 1, with Latifi also attacking his teammate and being forced wide at turn 2 just before the safety car’s re-emergence was announced, bringing proceedings to an end. 

The safety car wheeled in on the last lap to allow Rowland to roll across the line for victory ahead of teammate Latifi and De Vries, who stayed out of trouble and quietly moved forward all race long, with Leclerc finishing P4 from 19th on the grid ahead of Nobuharu Matsushita, Luca Ghiotto, Norman Nato up to P7 after stopping ahead of everyone, Albon, an impressive P9 for Sean Gelael from last on the grid, and Santino Ferrucci, who picked up the final point on debut.  

Preliminary Feature Race Classification