McLaren Formula 1 junior Nyck De Vries has taken Prema Racing’s first victory of the 2018 Formula 2 season in the sprint race at Paul Ricard.
The Dutchman managed to make his way from fourth to first, ultimately passing Louis Deletraz for victory on the Mistral Straight.
Deletraz had another strong race for Charouz Racing System coming home in second, after having passed polesitter Nicholas Latifi in the opening laps to take the lead. He had built a 2.5 second lead to de Vries before the Prema driver reeled in the advantage.
Luca Ghiotto took his second podium of the weekend for Campos, with third place.
McLaren F1 reserve Lando Norris managed to finish in fifth in a recovery drive after starting in 16th.
Championship leader Norris and DAMS’s Nicholas Latifi made contact going into Turn 1 on the last lap, but Norris managed to escape unscathed. Latfi ended up eighth with a severe flat spot and front wing damage.
Norris also had a hard fight with team-mate Sergio Sette Camara and both Carlins almost came together at the Mistral chicane. However, Norris managed to come out on top with Sette Camara finishing in sixth.
Charouz’s Antonio Fuoco finished in fourth, defending from both the Carlin drivers. Latifi’s team-mate, Alexander Albon, recovered from his DNF in the feature race to squeeze into the points with a seventh-place finish.
Many drivers, however, were plagued with reliability issues once more in the new-for-2018 F2 car.
Saturday’s feature race winner George Russell suffered a throttle problem on the grid and started the race four laps down once the problem was resolved. Tadasuke Makino also had a terminal throttle issue while running in sixth.
Jack Aitken had a bizarre incident on the formation lap and stalled after spinning the car at the last corner while both MP Motorsport cars and Artem Markelov stalled on the grid.
Emotions ran high towards the rear of the field. Campos’s Roy Nissany and Trident’s Arjun Maini had an intense battle which left Nissany with a penalty after he took evasive action and cut the Mistral chicane.
Maini’s emotions spilt over after the race and lead to a bizarre team-radio call in which he berated the series for ‘not giving him any support’ and even claimed that he ‘doesn’t want to race in this championship anymore.’
