Red Bull Ring F2: Leclerc leads charging Latifi in Race 1
Ferrari Formula 1 junior Charles Leclerc won the Formula 2 feature race in Austria as the Prema Racing and DAMS teams took different strategical approaches that produced an exciting conclusion.
Podium: winner Charles Leclerc, PREMA Powerteam, second place Nicholas Latifi, DAMS, third place Antonio Fuoco, PREMA Powerteam
FIA Formula 2
Leclerc, whose Prema team opted to put both its drivers on the soft tyres for a long opening stint, triumphed over DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi, who charged up the order after starting the race on the less durable supersoft rubber.
Antonio Fuoco held on to take his maiden podium finish in F2, with Oliver Rowland just half a second behind him at the chequered flag.
At the start, Leclerc led from pole in front of Fuoco while Rowland fell away from third-place starter Alexander Albon and dropped to sixth behind Latifi and Nobuharu Matsushita.
Rowland was shuffled further down the order by Artem Markelov as the Briton and Latifi got the less sustainable supersoft stint out of the way.
The DAMS pair pitted on laps seven and eight of the 40-lap event as Leclerc and Fuoco began to edge clear of Albon and Matsushita.
Leclerc gradually pulled away from his teammate and cemented his advantage while the stint wore on, while Rowland set about catching and passing Latifi once they switched to the softs.
As the long-running leaders – plus Markelov, Sergio Sette Camara and Raffaele Marciello – eked out the length of their first stint, Rowland and Latifi began setting fastest laps as they made the most of their fresh rubber.
That pace enabled Rowland to move ahead of Fuoco when the Italian rookie pitted for his supersofts with 10 laps remaining, as well as jumping Albon, Matsushita and Markelov.
Leclerc, who had pulled out a comfortable seven-second lead at the head of the pack by the time of his own stop on Lap 31, rejoined in first place without issue.
It looked as if Fuoco would re-establish second from Rowland when he got his super-softs up to temperature and he duly did with a move down the inside of the uphill right-hander of Turn 3 with seven laps remaining.
But the Prema driver could not pull away and he came under severe pressure from Latifi, who had demoted Rowland to fourth on lap 36, and the Canadian seized second down the inside of Turn 1 with two tours remaining.
Rowland then closed in on the struggling Fuoco but ran out of laps to get onto the podium.
Latifi closed in to just 1.3s behind Leclerc at the flag, but the Monegasque driver’s fourth win of 2017 was never seriously threatened.
Albon finished fifth ahead of Matsushita, Ralph Boschung, Markelov and Jordan King, while Sean Gelael rounded out the top 10 for Arden International.
McLaren F1 junior Nyck de Vries recovered to 13th after he failed to move away from his sixth place grid spot for the formation lap.
Sette Camara and Marciello, the two other driver to be on Leclerc's strategy, finished 16th and 19th respectively.
The only non-finisher was Norman Nato, who stopped on the pit straight during the early laps when “something broke” on his car.
Race 1 results
Cla | Driver | Team | Time/Gap | Interval |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Charles Leclerc | Prema Powerteam | 52'21.629 | |
2 | Nicholas Latifi | DAMS | 1.345 | 1.345 |
3 | Antonio Fuoco | Prema Powerteam | 5.160 | 3.815 |
4 | Oliver Rowland | DAMS | 5.682 | 0.522 |
5 | Alexander Albon | ART Grand Prix | 9.846 | 4.164 |
6 | Nobuharu Matsushita | ART Grand Prix | 12.179 | 2.333 |
7 | Ralph Boschung | Campos Racing | 19.400 | 7.221 |
8 | Artem Markelov | RUSSIAN TIME | 20.385 | 0.985 |
9 | Jordan King | MP Motorsport | 30.481 | 10.096 |
10 | Sean Gelael | Arden International | 33.662 | 3.181 |
11 | Robert Visoiu | Campos Racing | 35.636 | 1.974 |
12 | Gustav Malja | Racing Engineering | 36.011 | 0.375 |
13 | Nyck de Vries | Rapax | 44.145 | 8.134 |
14 | Luca Ghiotto | RUSSIAN TIME | 46.896 | 2.751 |
15 | Sergio Canamasas | Rapax | 48.883 | 1.987 |
16 | Sergio Sette Camara | MP Motorsport | 50.940 | 2.057 |
17 | Louis Deletraz | Racing Engineering | 53.423 | 2.483 |
18 | Nabil Jeffri | Trident | 56.881 | 3.458 |
19 | Raffaele Marciello | Trident | 1 lap | 1 lap |
DNF | Norman Nato | Arden International | 35 laps | 34 laps |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments