Shwartzman marches to F2 victory over unlucky Tsunoda

Robert Shwartzman made the most of a communication issue between Yuki Tsunoda and his Carlin team to take victory in a tricky wet-to-damp feature race at the Red Bull Ring.

Starting later after the first start was aborted due to the conditions, when the race did get underway pole man Tsunoda got the run into the first corner and held firm, holding of Guanyu Zhou and Callum Ilott, a winner in Austria a week earlier.

However, while Tsunoda proceeded to control the pace even as the conditions continued to evolve, he was caught out by an apparent radio issue that prevented him from pitting when he was supposed to.

Going longer than intended, losing him chunks of time to those who’d already stopped. Tsunoda eventually stopped with 6 laps remaining to emerge third behind Zhou and Shwartzman.

However, no sooner had Zhou got the lead as he looked to make amends for last weekend’s heartbreak when he retired from the lead, he’d lose it straight away to a charging Shwartzman.

From here the Russian held on despite the late rapid attentions of Tsunoda, who made the most of his fresher tyres to scythe to the back of the Prema, only to run out of time to make a move.

Nonetheless, both mark strong results for the F3 graduates, with Zhou clawing back some much needed points in third, ahead of Mick Schumacher, another driver charging in the closing stages. Callum Illot finished fifth, ahead of Christian Lundgaard, Marcus Armstrong, Dan Ticktum, Jack Aitken and final point scorer Sean Gelael.