Hampton Downs TRS: Ferrari junior Zhou wins incident-filled Race 2
Chinese driver Guan Yu Zhou made the most of a reverse-grid front row start in Race 2 of the Toyota Racing Series' round at Hampton Downs, leading all 15 laps on his way to victory.
Photo by: Bruce Jenkins
Zhou passed poleman Antoni Ptak off the line and stayed well clear of the carnage that unfolded behind, with the race getting red-flagged on two occasions.
The first red flag came out for Giles driver Nicolas Dapero going off at Turn 3 on the second lap – and, just as quickly as the race restarted, it was stopped yet again.
That time, however, it was due to trouble for both runaway points leader Lando Norris and nearest rival Artem Markelov, who were battling in the latter half of the top 10.
Norris had to pit after going off and went two laps down, while Markelov retired on the spot.
The two stoppages and the preceding safety car laps burned up more than half of the race distance and, when Zhou got the action underway for a third time, he only had six laps left to run.
And the Ferrari protege maintained his advantage to claim his first win in the series – and his M2 team's seventh consecutive triumph.
Victory driver Brendon Leitch passed Pedro Piquet on the final restart for the runner-up spot and stayed within a second of Zhou in the last stint, but had to do with second place.
Piquet took third, with Jehan Daruvala securing fourth place, the Indian having dropped out of the top 10 at the start, only to muscle his way back to the front of the pack.
Ferdinand Habsburg took fifth, ahead of poleman Ptak and Kami Laliberte, with Bruno Baptista, Taylor Cockerton and Will Owen making up the top 10.
Pos. | Driver | Team | Time/Delay |
1 | Guan Yu Zhou | M2 | 17:26.210 |
2 | Brendon Leitch | Victory | 0.797 |
3 | Pedro Piquet | M2 | 3.720 |
4 | Jehan Daruvala | M2 | 5.260 |
5 | Ferdinand Habsburg | Giles | 5.712 |
6 | Antoni Ptak | Giles | 6.565 |
7 | Kami Laliberte | M2 | 7.649 |
8 | Bruno Baptista | Victory | 8.851 |
9 | Taylor Cockerton | ETEC | 10.206 |
10 | Will Owen | Giles | 12.091 |
11 | Theo Bean | ETEC | 14.776 |
12 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Giles | 15.603 |
13 | Rodrigo Baptista | ETEC | 17.548 |
14 | Timothe Buret | ETEC | 18.802 |
15 | James Munro | Giles | 1 Lap |
16 | Lando Norris | M2 | 2 Laps |
17 | Julian Hanses | Victory | 2 Laps |
Ret | Artem Markelov | M2 | |
Ret | Nicolas Dapero | Giles |
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