Juri Vips clinched his maiden victory in Formula’s Two 100th race following a chaotic second Azerbaijan Sprint Race.
David Beckmann survived two Safety Car restarts and a Virtual Safety Car in which six drivers were eliminated – including championship leader – Guanyu Zhou, yet Vips reeled the German in and made the race winning past right at the start of lap 11.
Beckmann eventually went on to cling onto second at the flag ahead of Jehan Daruvala who finished third ahead of reverse pole-sitter, Bent Viscaal who fended off first Sprint Race winner – Robert Shwartzman to take fourth.
Dan Ticktum recovered from a first lap incident in which he was squeezed down the Turn One escape road by Zhou, as he finished sixth ahead of Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri who round out the points, with Piastri clinching the point for fastest lap.
Zhou however still leads by 23 points as Piastri displaced Pourchaire in second on countback by virtue of two second-placed finishes, with Ticktum staying fourth just one point behind the pair with Shwartzman occupying fifth.
At lights out, Viscaal initially clung onto the lead as several drivers locked up which caused various issues as Pourchaire and Boschung tangled with the latter retiring with damage, just like Zhou who locked up and tagged Ticktum to send both down the escape road.
Post race, Zhou tweeted that a throttle pedal issue was to blame for his retirement and apologised to Ticktum, tweeting:
Throttle pedal got stuck before T1. Was a passenger after, I tried my best to avoid all the cars ahead.
I’m really sorry to @DanTicktum
— Guanyu Zhou (@gyzhou_33) June 5, 2021
Zendeli also came to a halt after a collision which triggered the first Safety Car until end of lap two to enable Boschung, Zhou and Zendeli’s cars to all be removed safely, although Beckmann managed to pass Viscaal into Turn Four for the lead ahead of the Safety Car coming out.
Upon the restart, Beckmann made a clean start as Daruvala passed Vips into Turn Two, only for the Estonian to repass his fellow Red Bull junior into Turn Three, before making a move on Viscaal a lap later to make second.
Further behind, Ticktum was mounting a recovery drive as he found himself 10th when the second Safety Car came out after Roy Nissany had struck Richard Verschoor from behind into Turn Three, sending the Dutchman into the barriers.
Once the Safety Car period ended, Beckmann again made a clean restart as Felipe Drugovich clipped Christian Lundgaard, spinning the Dane into the barriers at Turn One whilst Marcus Armstrong got squeezed by Viscaal into the wall at Turn Four as he tried to make a pass for fourth.
The Virtual Safety Car was consequently brought out for a lap which gave Beckmann a breather but Vips had the better pace once back to racing speed, eventually passing Beckmann for the lead and win on Lap 11.
Shwartzman enjoyed a solid drive to fifth amidst the chaos amongst the lower half of the top ten and pushed Viscaal in the closing laps but couldn’t force his way past the Dutchman, as Ticktum pounced on a mistake from Lawson on lap 12 to finish sixth at the flag.
Lawson made an error out of Turn Seven which forced him to slow down and let Ticktum plus Piastri through, although he was able to eventually reclaim seventh from Piastri in the following laps and finish 0.538 seconds off Ticktum as they completed the top eight points paying positions.
Pourchaire meanwhile pitted on lap three with front wing damage and mounted an excellent recovery to finish ninth on the road.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | 21 | 46m 05.704 |
| 2 | David Beckmann | Charouz | 21 | + 3.260 |
| 3 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 21 | + 3.883 |
| 4 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | 21 | + 4.644 |
| 5 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | 21 | + 5.002 |
| 6 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | 21 | + 6.213 |
| 7 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | 21 | + 6.751 |
| 8 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | 21 | + 9.138 |
| 9 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | 21 | + 13.315 |
| 10 | Felipe Drugovich | UNI-Virtuosi | 21 | + 15.473 |
| 11 | Matteo Nannini | Campos | 21 | + 17.975 |
| 12 | Jack Aitken | HWA Racelab | 21 | + 22.828 |
| 13 | Marino Sato | Trident | 21 | + 25.675 |
| 14 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | 21 | + 49.981 |
| 15 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | 21 | + 52.037 |
| 16 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | 21 | + 1m 31.818 |
| RET | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | 7 | Crash |
| RET | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | 7 | Collision |
| RET | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | 5 | Collision |
| RET | Ralph Boschung | Campos | 0 | Collision |
| RET | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | 0 | Collision |
| RET | Lirim Zendeli | MP Motorsport | 0 |
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