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ILOTT’S HEARTBREAK IS MAZEPIN’S GAIN

Nikita Mazepin’s rich run of form continued as he took his maiden win in the F2 Feature Race at Silverstone, as Callum Ilott and Mick Schumacher missed huge opportunities to close the gap on Championship leader Robert Shwartzman.

The drama started before the race began with Ilott stalling from the front row of the grid on the formation lap, meaning he had to start from the pit lane and fight his way through from 22nd and last.

Once the race got underway, Schumacher immediately jumped pole sitter Felipe Drugovich for P1, Mazepin passed Lundgaard and Jehan Daruvala got swallowed up by the pack and fell backwards down the order.

Later on in the lap both Mazepin and Lundgaard passed Drugovich, making use of their superior grip on the softer tyres and started to chase after Schumacher in the lead.

Both championship protagonists were making good progress through the field, Shwartzman moving up into P13 and Ilott already back up to P18 by the end of lap two.

Lap three saw Ilott continue to progress, as he passed Artem Markelov for P17, but it was Nikita Mazepin who seized the real advantage, passing Schumacher on the outside of Stowe to steal the lead, continuing his great run of form after his maiden podium last time out in Hungary.

Lap five saw Mazepin move out of DRS range for Schumacher, who was keeping tabs on Lundgaard behind him, whilst Ilott had passed Giuliano Alesi, Pedro Piquet and Sean Gelael to move up to P14. Marino Sato also somehow managed to run wide onto the grass on exit of Chapel, but was able to continue.

Lap six saw the pit stops start, Louis Deletraz using the undercut to move in with the leaders after their stops on lap eight. Laps seven and eight also saw Guanyu Zhou start to carve his way through the order, passing Tsunoda and Aitken at The Loop in successive laps to close in on the lead group of cars.

Lap 10 saw Christian Lundgaard emerge from the pit lane and intially ahead of Mazepin and Schumacher, but they both used their warm tyres to immediately get past, with the PREMA making a brave move into The Loop to maintain a net P2.

Lundgaard got back past Schumacher on lap 15, again for a net P2, as he took advantage of the German being held up whilst making his way through the traffic, as the Hitech of Mazepin scampered down the road.

Meanwhile out front Drugovich was looking good with a decent delta over the gang of cars that had made their stops, however a very slow in-lap saw him drop all the way down to P12, which became P10 after Zhou and Aitken finally came into the pits on lap 21.

Those pit stops gave Mazepin the lead once more, with a 4.5 second lead over Lundgaard in second. As further behind Zhou started to fly again, passing Ilott for P7 and Daruvala for P6 on lap 23, looking for a very late charge for the podium, and possibly the lead.

Zhou then set the fastest lap of the race as Schumacher started to move backwards, losing out to Deletraz, Tsunoda and Zhou all on lap 24 to fall from third to sixth as his tyre life started to fade.

Zhou flew past Tsunoda and closed up to the rear of Deletraz on lap 25, diving past at his favourite spot, The Loop, to move into the podium positions. Further behind his team mate, Ilott, continued his great recovery drive, getting past Schumacher for P6 at Brooklands.

He then swiftly followed that up by getting past Deletraz down the Hangar Straight and into Stowe, moving himself up into an impressive P5, and Drugovich moved into P7, passing the struggling cars of Schumacher and Daruvala.

Zhou stormed past Lundgaard for P2, but with only two laps to go, ran out of time to get after Mazepin for the lead, just like his team mate did with Luca Ghiotto in Hungary two weeks ago. 

The final lap saw Yuki Tsunoda also steal P3 from the Renault junior on the last lap into Stowe, whilst Daruvala lost out to Matsushita for the final point and Pedro Piquet in the final three corners to drop from P10 down to P12.

Dan Ticktum finished a decent P8 having started P12, which gives him pole position for tomorrow’s feature race. Whilst another disappointing day for Championship leader Shwartzman left him down in P14.

RACE RESULT:

MAZEPIN ZHOU TSUNODA

LUNDGAARD ILOTT DELETRAZ DRUGOVICH TICKTUM SCHUMACHER MATSUSHITA

PIQUET DARUVALA AITKEN SHWARTZMAN GELAEL ARMSTRONG GHIOTTO MARKELOV ALESI SATO SAMAIA