Alexander Albon seized a maiden Formula 2 victory in a frenetic Azerbaijan feature race, as Jack Aitken recovered from stalling on the grid to finish second.
After taking the lead from polesitter Albon following the only pitstop window in the race, ART Grand Prix’s George Russell proceeded to control proceedings from the front. He built and maintained a five-second gap to second-placed Nyck de Vries, before a safety car eradicated this margin.
On lap 20 of 29, the race restarted and de Vries dived to the inside of Russell at Turn 1. Missing the corner, he guided the race-leader into the run-off area. Facing the barriers, Russell was out of contention. De Vries later retired from the race.
With third-placed Albon also running wide at the restart, Antonio Fuoco – who started the race in 12th and climbed to 6th on lap one – grabbed the lead. Albon slipped to second. With four laps remaining, Albon slipstreamed and re-passed Fuoco to take the lead, which he did not relinquish.
Fuoco, who took Charouz Racing System’s first F2 podium in third, was unable to repel an attack from Aitken at Turn 3 on the penultimate lap. Aitken’s drive to a first F2 podium in second place was one of recovery after he had stalled at the start from sixth on the grid.
His rise through the field involved passing Lando Norris, who instead stalled on the formation lap and had to start from the pitlane. Norris climbed up to an eventual sixth place finish, as he was unable to pass Sergio Sette Camara and Nicholas Latifi in the closing stages. They finished fourth and fifth respectively.
Ralph Boschung and Roberto Merhi finished seventh and eighth for MP Motorsport, meaning that the team will lock-out the front-row for Sunday’s sprint race. Like Aitken, Merhi recovered from having stalled on the grid.
Tadasuke Makino started from the pitlane to finish ninth and Sean Gelael rounded out the point-scorers in 10th.
Russell managed to return to the race after reversing out of the Turn 1 run-off zone, but finished nearly a minute behind in 12th. Nirei Fukuzumi, who ran as high as sixth after the pitstop phase suffered significant tyre degradation and finished the race 13th.
Artem Markelov was one of six retirees. He suffered a dramatic engine failure with seven laps to go.
Both Campos’s crashed to cause the race’s two safety cars. Luca Ghiotto slammed into the wall at Turn 16 after losing control on the corner’s exit kerb on the opening lap. Rookie Roy Nissany was running fifth when he hit the wall on the exit of Turn 4 at mid-distance.
