Christian Lundgaard Dominates Tuscan Sprint Race as Mick Schumacher Extends Championship Lead

Christian Lundgaard dominated the 2020 Tuscan Sprint Race to boost his title dreams whilst Mick Schumacher extended his championship lead over Callum Ilott.

Lundgaard made a quick start from third to swiftly clear pole-sitter, Artem Markelov to take the lead and set the fastest lap of the race on lap two before he comfortably held his lead to the flag over Louis Deletraz, who clinched second with a sweeping outside move round San Donato on Markelov on lap six,

Juri Vips snatched his first F2 points and third-placed podium after passing Markelov four laps later, before nearly snatching second from Deletraz at the flag but missed out by 0.551 seconds.

Schumacher finished fourth after pipping Guanyu Zhou to the flag after the Chinese benefitted from a Virtual Safety Car, which was caused by the Hitech GP duo of Nikita Mazepin and Luca Ghiotto colliding at San Donato on lap 15 with the Italian retiring on the spot with damage.

Ilott recovered from 12th on the grid to finish sixth ahead of Jehan Daruvala and Marino Sato who round out the top eight finishers.

Speaking post-race on his win which saw him cut his championship deficit to just 16 points, Lundgaard described his victory as “redemption…”, saying; “P1 today, and redemption for yesterday when I was leading the whole race until the Safety Car ruined it.”

In terms of the championship, Schumacher extended his championship lead over Ilott to eight points whilst Lundgaard moves above Shwartzman into third as Mazepin and Tsunoda both failed to score points.

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Markelov made a slow start from pole unlike Lundgaard who got a lightning start from third to put himself in the Russian’s slipstream instantly before diving up the inside to take the lead before even reaching San Donato.

Deletraz meanwhile made a strong start from sixth to work his way up to third ahead of Schumacher who was fifth behind Vips who had a poor getaway from second on the grid, with Lundgaard pulling a two second lead on the opening lap over Markelov.

Schumacher’s title rivals, Ilott and Shwartzman meanwhile found themselves 12th and 16th respectively by the time they hit San Donato on lap three, although Shwartzman would pass Zhou into Materassi on that very lap for 15th position.

Deletraz bided his time in the early stages until he made an outside move on Markelov round San Donato for second with Vips following through on the next lap, only to get a light tap on his right rear tyre  which forced him to concede the position back until lap 10 when he made an inside move into that corner stick.

Markelov’s tyres soon began to fade with Schumacher making a move into Bucine but the Russian ultimately benefitted from DRS to make the pass into San Donato at the start of the next lap, until a big moment at Casanova allowed Schumacher and Mazepin through at first and second Arrabbiata corners respectively with Ghiotto and Felipe Drugovich following through soon afterwards.

Further back, Ilott took ninth from Armstrong on lap 13 whilst Shwartzman and Zhou continued to tussle as they progressed through the field after starting in 22nd and 20th positions respectively.

Ghiotto meanwhile had reeled in Hitech GP teammate, Mazepin and used DRS to position himself on outside heading into San Donato when he attempted an outside move but the Russian locked up and slid across into Ghiotto to send him momentarily airborne and end his race. Mazepin was hit with a 10s time penalty for causing the collision which coupled with a late pit stop for damage saw the Russian finish in 18th position.

Stewards consequently deployed the Virtual Safety Car which allowed Tsunoda plus those at the back like Jack Aitken and Dan Ticktum a gamble in switching to the soft tyres, although Giuliano Alesi encountered a right rear wheel issue during his stop which forced him to retire.

The virtual safety car was withdrawn at the start of lap 17 with Daruvala breezing past Drugovich into San Donato as the Brazilian began to struggle on his hard tyres, running wide at Bucine to allow Ilott and Zhou through into sixth and seventh which soon became the other way round when Zhou got passed his UNI-Virtuosi teammate into San Donato on the following lap.

Shwartzman meanwhile cleared Marcus Armstrong on that very lap for ninth but ran wide at Materassi to ruin any chances of points, despite recovering to that position by the flag after repassing Armstrong on lap 21 but lost the position to Marino Sato who took the final point ahead of the Russian, Roy Nissany and Armstrong.

Tsunoda’s tyre gamble backfired when he was forced to pit for a new front wing after colliding with Drugovich on lap 19 before then making the pass on the MP Motorsport driver at the start of the following lap prior to receiving a black and orange flag for front wing damage.

Up front, Lundgaard clung on for victory from Deletraz by 14.321s ahead of Vips, Schumacher, Zhou and Ilott who both passed Daruvala on laps 20 and 22 respectively into San Donato, with the Indian finishing seventh ahead of Sato who claimed his first-ever F2 point in eighth place.

 

Result

Position	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Christian Lundgaard	ART GP	23	37m 51.980
2	Louis Deletraz	Charouz	23	+ 14.321
3	Juri Vips	DAMS	23	+ 14.870
4	Mick Schumacher	Prema	23	+ 18.018
5	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	23	+ 18.382
6	Callum Ilott	UNI-Virtuosi	23	+ 24.421
7	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	23	+ 26.264
8	Marino Sato	Trident	23	+ 26.301
9	Robert Shwartzman	Prema	23	+ 31.425
10	Roy Nissany	Trident	23	+ 32.942
11	Marcus Armstrong	ART GP	23	+ 34.902
12	Pedro Piquet	Charouz	23	+ 35.040
13	Jack Aitken	Campos	23	+ 35.254
14	Nobuharu Matsushita	MP Motorsport	23	+ 36.983
15	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	23	+ 39.072
16	Guilherme Samaia	Campos	23	+ 48.433
17	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	23	+ 48.483
18	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech GP	23	+ 50.793
19	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin	23	+ 1m 09.649
20	Artem Markelov	HWA Racelab	23	+ 1m 21.885
21	Giuliano Alesi	HWA Racelab	16	Wheel
22	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech GP	14	Collision