Sochi F2: Ghiotto wins crash-shortened sprint race

On lap one a huge crash between polesitter Nikita Mazepin and Honda junior Nobuharu Matsushita triggered a shake-up in the order, after they hit the barriers at the exit of Turn 2.

After a lengthy red flag period to extract Matsushita and repair the barriers, Virtuosi Racing’s Ghiotto restarted in the lead ahead of Ferrari junior Callum Ilott and newly-crowned F2 champion Nyck de Vries, ART Grand Prix teammate to Mazepin.

The three ran line astern with Sauber Junior Team driver Ilott able to stick with the batting lead duo, and the fighting meant the top six were able to close in to form a train.

The top six were together for the last two laps, de Vries leading the fighting pack, but every time he tried to pass with DRS, Ghiotto placed his car perfectly to resist his advances.

It was the Italian’s third win of the year and extends his gap in third in the championship – vital for the 40 super license points it provides.

De Vries eventually finished just 0.7s behind in second, with Illot completing the podium spots after another strong run.

McLaren development driver Sergio Sette Camara finished fourth on the road but a five second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage – which he detested on the radio – dropped him back to sixth. 

Instead, second in the championship Nicholas Latifi took fourth ahead of Ghiotto’s Virtuosi teammate Guan Yu Zhou.

Sean Gelael earned his best result since Baku in seventh for Prema Racing, with a comfortable gap to the last points scorer, Giuliano Alesi.

Jordan King passed Artem Markelov for ninth late on, the duo having started 12th and 20th respectively. Markelov got a demon start and ran as high as eighth in his debut with Arden after retiring on the first lap of the feature race one day before.

Matevos Isaakyan scored 13th for his best result of his debut F2 weekend with the Sauber Junior Team.

Results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Gap
1	Luca Ghiotto	UNI-Virtuosi
2	Nyck de Vries	ART Grand Prix	0.712
3	Callum Ilott	Charouz Racing System	1.672
4	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	3.383
5	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	3.820
6	Sergio Sette Camara	DAMS	7.336
7	Sean Gelael	Prema Powerteam	10.343
8	Giuliano Alesi	Trident	13.108
9	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	14.851
10	Artem Markelov	Arden International	16.769
11	Jack Aitken	Campos Racing	23.898
12	Ralph Boschung	Trident	26.558
13	Matevos Isaakyan	Charouz Racing System	27.414
14	Louis Deletraz	Carlin	31.933
15	Marino Sato	Campos Racing	36.472
16	Tatiana Calderon	Arden International	43.057
17	Mahaveer Raghunathan	MP Motorsport	1'01.506
	Mick Schumacher	Prema Powerteam	8 Laps
	Nikita Mazepin	ART Grand Prix
	Nobuharu Matsushita	Carlin
View full results