Mercedes Formula 1 junior George Russell led every lap to win a rain-affected Formula 2 feature race at Paul Ricard, slashing Lando Norris’s points lead in the process.
A heavy rain shower in the minutes before the start of the race led to difficult track conditions. The field universally started on the slick tyres. McLaren F1 reserve and F2 championship leader Norris stalled on the grid along with title protagonist Artem Markelov. Both were lapped.
Polesitter Russell demonstrated exceptional pace in the damp conditions. He had built a four-second lead by lap five of 30 from Carlin’s Sergio Sette Camara in second.
The rain cleared and the track dried in the second half of the race. Russell maintained the lead but was placed under increasing pressure by Sette Camara in the closing stages.
He caught Russell at a rate of a second per lap. His charge lost momentum when he locked-up entering the Mistral chicane.
Initially gaining around 0.6s in the incident, for which he was investigated, Sette Camara failed to close the gap any further. He ended up 1.1s behind at the chequered flag.
Russell’s third win of the season means that Norris’s championship lead has been reduced to seven points.
The leading duo finished over 30 seconds clear of Roberto Merhi in third. Alexander Albon had commanded third place until safe mode activated on his car for the second time this weekend. He trundled back to the pitlane and eventually retired for the third consecutive race.
MP Motorsport’s Merhi secured his second podium in as many rounds after starting from 14th on the grid. He made up significant ground in the damp conditions early on, climbing to fourth by lap seven.
Merhi finished four seconds clear of Campos’ Luca Ghiotto. He spun twice in the wet conditions, dropping out of the top 10 on the opening lap, but demonstrated strong pace to recover the lost time.
Despite serving a 10-second stop-go penalty after his mechanics restated his car on the grid as the formation lap began, Antonio Fuoco ended up fifth.
The Charouz Racing System driver dropped to 17th after the penalty but demonstrated pace equal to the leaders. Fuoco passed Prema Racing’s Nyck de Vries on the final lap, as the McLaren junior struggled on the supersoft compound in the closing laps.
Louis Deletraz ended up in seventh place, ahead of Nicholas Latifi in eighth. DAMS’s Latifi had to hold off Russian Time’s Tadasuke Makino on the final lap in order to secure reverse grid pole.
After his stall, Norris lost even more time by gambling with a set of wet compound tyres en route to 17th. Jack Aitken, Roy Nissany and Maximilian Gunther were the other drivers to pit for wet tyres. All of the gamblers were forced to pit again to switch back to slicks within four laps.
Sean Gelael was running in fifth place before a spin and stall at Turn 5 forced the Prema Racing driver into retirement.
