Leclerc dominates F2 Feature race at Barcelona
Prema Racing’s Charles Leclerc made it two wins from two, with a dominating drive in the opening Formula 2 race of the Barcelona weekend.
The Monegasque driver led from pole position and triumphed in a closely fought wheel to wheel battle with Luca Ghiotto in the opening stages.
The decisive event proved to be when Sergio Canamasas’ car ground to a halt on Lap 10, causing the safety car to be deployed.
Those who started on the soft tyres such as Leclerc, Ghiotto and Matsushita gained from this because they had already made their mandatory pitstop while those who started on the hard compound tyres like Albon, Rowland and Markelov lost any possible advantage they would have gained from their alternative strategy.
Leclerc was able to negotiate his way through the field extremely well and won the race by 3.730 seconds ahead of Luca Ghiotto.
Oliver Rowland completed the top three, making it an identical podium to the last race in Bahrain. The British driver took the final place in the top three from ART Grand Prix’s Nobuharu Matsushita on the penultimate lap.
Alexander Albon made it two ARTs in the top five. Nicholas Latifi will line-up third in tomorrow’s sprint race after finishing in sixth ahead of Gustav Malja who came from 18th on the grid to finish in seventh.
Bahrain feature race victor Artem Markelov rounded out the top eight and will start from reverse grid pole tomorrow.
Similarly to Markelov, Jordan King struggled to manage his rubber and finished ninth ahead of rookie Ralph Boschung who achieved his maiden points finish in 10th.
Nyck de Vries suffered a poor start and once again struggled on the Pirelli rubber. Louis Deletraz wasn’t afraid to get his elbows out and recovered from an early spin to finish in 12th place.
Antonio Fuoco endured a miserable race, which included multiple collisions and a ten-second penalty which grounded him to 14th place.
Ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi retired following a collision with Fuoco, which gave the Spaniard a puncture.