Ferrari Formula 1 junior Charles Leclerc won his third Formula 2 race of the season with a dominating drive in the feature race in Baku which prematurely ended with a multicar pileup at Turn 8.
Leclerc started from pole position for the fourth feature race in a row and managed to maintain his lead into the tight first corner.
Nobuharu Matsushita started alongside the Monegasque driver on the front row but suffered from a poor start losing second place to the fast starting Nicholas Latifi.
The fight for second place continued as Nyck de Vries passed Latifi on the first safety car restart, which was caused due to Johnny Cecotto Jr. sliding into the barriers just after exiting the pits.
Prema Racing’s Antonio Fuoco was the second victim of the Baku streets as he vaulted over the back of Sergio Canamasas into retirement.
Nabil Jeffri and Louis Deletraz binned their cars into the wall in quick succession on lap 10 and 11 respectively.
Deletraz’s stricken car brought out the second safety car of the race. Luca Ghiotto led the field as he was yet to pit after starting on the medium tyres.
The Italian managed to hold Leclerc off for a couple of laps before he made his mandatory pitstop. Leclerc quickly built up a lead over de Vries and took the win by 3.469 seconds.
De Vries followed his maiden F2 win in Monaco with an excellent second place finish with Nicholas Latifi finishing where he started in third place.
DAMS’ Oliver Rowland battled through from ninth place on the grid to fourth place, triumphing in a tight battle with Russian Time’s Artem Markelov.
Norman Nato returned to the points for the first time since the season opener in Bahrain. Jordan King extended his points streak to seven races with a seventh place finish.
Sergio Sette Camara came across the line in eighth place but received a ten-second penalty for failing to slow for yellows meaning Campos Racing’s Ralph Boschung will start tomorrow’s race from pole position.
The Swiss driver actually ended the race down the escape road but due to the countback rule, he was classified in eighth place.
Sergio Canamasas and series returnee Sergey Sirotkin also benefitted from the rule as they ended the race in the barriers but still claimed ninth and tenth place.
Sean Gelael also received a penalty for the same infringement as Camara and fell out of the points to 14th.
The stricken Arden of Gelael underneath the castle at Turn 8 created a roadblock with just three laps to go so the race was abruptly red flagged and not restarted.
