F2 2020: Robert Shwartzman Wins Wet Styrian Feature Race

Robert Shwartzman clinched a maiden F2 victory in an entertaining wet Feature Race to snatch the lead of the championship from Callum Ilott. 

Having struggled to get to grips with his car during an extended series of formation laps prior to a 50 minute red flag, Shwartzman fought back through the field to make a race winning switchback pass on Guanyu Zhou on lap 27.

The reigning F3 champion graduate then fended off a late charge from pole-sitter Yuki Tsunoda, who lost a maiden lights to flag win through a communication issue which saw him pit too late before charging back to finish in second.

Speaking post-race on his victory, Shwartzman was “super happy” and praised Prema’s “really great strategy”.

On nearly losing the win towards the end, the Russian said; “I saw him coming and the last give laps were really intense, because I started to lose the rear grip. Thankfully, Yuki was struggling a bit by then too, which saved me.”

Zhou rounded out the podium after just edging out Mick Schumacher and Callum Ilott, whilst Christian Lundgaard, Marcus Armstrong, Dan Ticktum, Jack Aitken and Sean Gelael completed the top ten in a reduced 36 lap race. 

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Having been delayed a hour due to F1’s rain delay, the race began with five formation laps, which ultimately proved too wet as Ticktum’s car switched to safety mode with stewards forced to throw a 50 minute red flag until conditions improved. 

Once underway after four laps behind safety car, Tsunoda sped away into a comfortable lead ahead of Zhou who stayed within 2s of the Japanese driver and briefly reduced the deficit when Tsunoda ran wide at turn three on lap 13. 

Ilott kept in touch with the top two until Zhou pitted on lap 22 alongside Shwartzman, before pitting himself a lap later only to lose out to both drivers when rejoining the track. 

Tsunoda meanwhile couldn’t hear his team’s instructions to pit at end of lap 23 and stayed out for three more laps before pitting, which saw him emerge back out in fourth, just as Shwartzman got the switchback on Zhou through turn four to snatch the lead. 

Shwartzman then built up his lead whilst Tsunoda rapidly charged through to take Ilott and Zhou within three laps, before eventually failing to make a race winning pass to reclaim the lead against a stubborn Shwartzman in the closing stages. 

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Further down the field, Lundgaard made excellent progress in the early stages as drivers struggled with treacherous conditions, as he rose to fourth before pitting but a mistake when trying to pass Ilott relegated him to a sixth placed finish. 

Schumacher fought back from a tough first half of the race to reel in Zhou but just couldn’t find that late pass to make it a Prema one-three finish, having displaced Ilott to fifth on the penultimate lap. 

Ticktum will start on reverse pole for tomorrow’s Sprint Race (10:10am BST) after recovering from a tough start in which he struggled with visibility and rain light issues, to eventually pass a struggling Aitken to finish eighth and snatch reverse pole. 

HWA Racelab’s Artem Markelov didn’t even start after beaching his car in the gravel at Wurth Kurve on his sighting lap.

In the championship standings, Shwartzman now leads Ilott by 11 points with 48 points to the Brit’s 37, as Christian Lundgaard climbed to third with 26 points and two points ahead of ART GP teammate – Marcus Armstrong. 

 

Results

Position	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Robert Shwartzman	Prema	36	56m 32.840s
2	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin	36	+ 1.512
3	Guanyu Zhou	Uni-Virtuosi	36	+ 18.228
4	Mick Schumacher	Prema	36	+ 18.367
5	Callum Ilott	Uni-Virtuosi	36	+ 20.766
6	Christian Lundgaard	ART GP	36	+ 22.271
7	Marcus Armstrong	ART GP	36	+ 24.710
8	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	36	+ 28.851
9	Jack Aitken	Campos	36	+ 31.738
10	Sean Gelael	DAMS	36	+ 32.102
11	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech GP	36	+ 33.012
12	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	36	+ 35.430
13	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	36	+ 38.963
14	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech GP	36	+ 42.978
15	Roy Nissany	Trident	36	+ 53.122
16	Marino Sato	Trident	36	+ 54.292
17	Nobuharu Matsushita	MP Motorsport	36	+ 54.659
18	Pedro Piquet	Charouz	36	+ 62.481
19	Louis Deletraz	Charouz	36	+ 71.498
20	Guilherme Samaia	Campos	35	+ 1 lap
21	Giuliano Alesi	HWA Racelab	35	+ 1 lap
22	Artem Markelov	HWA Racelab	0	DNS