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Australia

Silverstone F2: Ghiotto outduels Latifi for win

Luca Ghiotto fended off Williams Formula 1 junior Nicholas Latifi, in a battle which involved the two making contact, to take victory in the Silverstone Formula 2 feature race.

Luca Ghiotto, UNI Virtuosi Racing

Luca Ghiotto, UNI Virtuosi Racing

FIA Formula 2

Ghiotto got a brilliant start to jump fellow Virtuosi Racing driver Guan Yu Zhou for the lead despite being on the dirty side of the grid, and kept his teammate at arm's length until the pitstops.

Williams junior Latifi had an almost perfect start to the race from fourth, jumping and pulling away from DAMS teammate Sergio Sette Camara to run third behind the Virtuosi pair entering the pits.

Although Ghiotto was leading, the Virtuosi squad brought in Zhou first on lap six of 29, hoping to give Zhou the benefit of the undercut and Ghiotto a clear pitlane to avoid traffic.

However, DAMS managed to release Latifi ahead of Zhou into second, and when Ghiotto pitted on lap seven, he emerged just ahead of Latifi but on cold tyres.

Latifi took the lead soon after as the Ghiotto locked up at Brooklands - but Ghiotto wouldn’t give up after being passed and made a daring dive at Stowe on lap 11, and followed that with multiple fastest laps to push his lead above the three-second threshold.

It was enough to give Ghiotto a third race win in F2 and a first-ever feature race win.

Latifi matched Ghiotto with fastest laps in the closing stages, but couldn't do enough to get within range to pass. It was still a much-needed podium to get Latifi’s championship bid back on track, in a race where points leader Nyck de Vries was sixth.

Behind Latifi, Renault junior Zhou took his fourth podium, despite a resurgent Sette Camara threatening to pass him in the final stages.

Just like in the closing stages of the Austria feature race, de Vries struggled for performance late on and lost the fifth place he’d held for a long period to Jack Aitken.

The Campos driver passed de Vries at Turn 3 with less than four laps to go to seal fifth.

Both Carlin drivers lost places during the pitstop phase. Fifth-place starter Louis Deletraz was the team's best finisher in seventh behind de Vries, while Austria feature race winner Nobuharu Matsushita had to settle for ninth.

Splitting the two was Callum Ilott in eighth, taking the reverse-grid pole for Sunday’s sprint race. The Sauber Junior Team driver had a slow start and did well to recover.

Behind Matsushita, Jordan King rounded out the top 10 for MP Motorsport.

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Edition

Australia