Guanyu Zhou claimed the F2 championship lead with a dramatic victory in a thrilling Bahrain Feature Race.
A poor start saw Zhou drop down to fifth in the opening stint but a controversially timed safety car saw the Alpine junior come alive on soft tyres after his pit stop to charge through from sixth to second in six laps.
Richard Verschoor led the race after a lightning restart but Zhou made an inside move at turn four on lap 28 to snatch the lead and sprinted off to a maiden Feature Race victory, ahead of Dan Ticktum who too found pace in the closing stages as he survived a spin by Oscar Piastri to finish second.
Liam Lawson snatched third off Verschoor on the final lap to leave the MP Motorsport driver in fourth ahead of Marcus Armstrong, Jehan Daruvala, Robert Shwartzman, Theo Pourchaire, Felipe Drugovich and Matteo Nannini who rounded out the top ten.
Zhou consequently leads Lawson by 11 points heading to Monaco in late May, with Daruvala two points behind the Kiwi.
The race start saw the top four split strategy as Zhou and Ticktum opted for hard tyres whilst Christian Lundgaard and Drugovich started on softs, which paid dividends with a better launch off the line to take the lead ahead of Zhou.
Further back, Shwartzman rear-ended Roy Nissany who retired on the spot along with HWA Racelab’s Alessio Deledda, which triggered the first of two safety cars and the Russian was handed a drive through penalty.
Once racing resumed, Lundgaard fended off the threat of Drugovich after briefly exchanging the lead on the restart as Piastri quickly cleared Verschoor then Zhou to improve to third with Armstrong soon following suit.
By lap seven, Lundgaard and Drugovich began to struggle on their soft tyres with the latter finding himself passed by Piastri into turn one, with the reigning F3 champion then making a sweeping outside move onto Lundgaard through the first corner on lap 13 to take the lead.
Lundgaard pitted at the end of that lap with Drugovich following suit a lap later but Campos’ Gianluca Petecof suffered a fire extinguisher failure on lap 16, pulling over on lap 16 to trigger a virtual safety car (VSC) which soon became a full Safety Car moments later.
Piastri made his stop on lap 17 just before the VSC was declared and dropped to fourth as Armstrong assumed the lead, pitting a lap later under the full Safety Car which saw him retain the lead.
Upon the second restart, Armstrong slipped to third as Piastri snatched the lead heading into the first corner ahead of Verschoor, who then took the Australian driver into that corner a lap later to claim the lead in just his third F2 race.
Drugovich, Zhou and Lawson meanwhile cleared Armstrong on that same lap with Zhou on soft tyres then passing his teammate on the slower hard tyres a lap later for third on lap 21.
Zhou soon afterwards caught and passed Piastri as Ticktum took both Drugovich and Lawson to put himself fourth with nine laps left.
Up front, Verschoor was struggling to manage his softs which allowed Zhou to cut his deficit by around 0.5s per lap, with the Chinese driver eventually catching and passing Verschoor on lap 28 with an inside move at turn four after he was fended off through the opening three corners.
Zhou proceeded to calmly sprint away towards victory as Ticktum avoided a late braking collision on lap 29 between himself and Piastri who was on the outside of turn one, with Verschoor just ahead but struggling for rear grip on exit of the first corner.
Ticktum eventually got past Piastri a lap later but a late fightback on the inside kerb of turn two saw the Aussie spin out, triggering a late VSC from which Ticktum quickly cleared Verschoor and reeled in Zhou on the restart but failed to pass in time for victory.
Lawson meanwhile snatched third from Verschoor on the final lap to put himself second in the championship behind Zhou, as the Dutchman settled for fourth on the road.
Marcus Armstrong clung on to finish fifth ahead of Daruvala and Shwartzman, with Pourchaire taking eighth after a five second time penalty for Drugovich following a Safety Car infringement.
Drugovich managed to finish ninth by just 0.088s from HWA Racelab’s Matteo Nannini who claimed his first-ever point in F2 after finishing tenth.
Christian Lundgaard and Marino Sato also received a 5s time penalty for a rule breach under Safety Car conditions, whilst Bent Viscaal was slapped with a 10s time penalty as those three all finished outside of the points.
As F2 now takes a break until late May when they visit Monaco, Zhou now holds a 11 point lead over Lawson, who leads his fellow Red Bull junior – Daruvala by two points as Piastri slipped to fourth with Ticktum rounding out the top five in the driver standings.
Carlin meanwhile leads the team battle ahead of Virtuosi by four points whilst PREMA sit third ahead of Hitech GP.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | 32 | 1h 2m 27.858 |
| 2 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | 32 | + 0.482 |
| 3 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | 32 | + 2.950 |
| 4 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | 32 | + 4.095 |
| 5 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | 32 | + 9.792 |
| 6 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 32 | + 11.926 |
| 7 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | 32 | + 12.159 |
| 8 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | 32 | + 18.479 |
| 9 | Felipe Drugovich | Virtuosi | 32 | + 19.764 |
| 10 | Matteo Nannini | HWA Racelab | 32 | + 19.852 |
| 11 | David Beckmann | Charouz | 32 | + 20.905 |
| 12 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | 32 | + 21.256 |
| 13 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | 32 | + 27.385 |
| 14 | Marino Sato | Trident | 32 | + 28.826 |
| 15 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | 32 | + 31.535 |
| 16 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | 32 | + 40.620 |
| 17 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | 32 | + 48.452 |
| 18 | Lirim Zendeli | MP Motorsport | 32 | + 1m 01.952 |
| 19 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | 29 | Spin |
| 20 | Gianluca Petecof | Campos | 15 | Fire Extinguisher |
| 21 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | 0 | |
| 22 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | 0 | Collision |
Leave a Reply