Drugovich sprints to dominant F2 victory in Barcelona

Felipe Drugovich sealed his second win of the 2020 FIA Formula 2 season with a commanding victory in the Barcelona sprint race.

Drugovich jumped into the lead on the run to Turn 1 after reverse grid pole sitter Luca Ghiotto got off the line poorly in his Hitech Grand Prix car, before the Brazilian pulled clear en route to a dominant win.

It was Drugovich’s first win in F2 since the Red Bull Ring sprint race at the opening round of the season in Austria, while he handed MP Motorsport its second victory of the Barcelona weekend following Nobuharu Matsushita’s heroics from 18th on the grid on Saturday.

Ghiotto took second place ahead of Prema’s Mick Schumacher, who made a late charge to complete the podium having swept around the outside of Callum Ilott at Turn 1 with five laps to go.

Red Bull and Honda Formula 1 protege Yuki Tsunoda passed Ilott a few corners later to grab fourth as the UNI-Virtuosi Racing driver struggled with dramatic tyre degradation in the closing stages.

Matsushita followed up his feature race victory with a strong fifth place for MP Motorsport having pulled off a late overtake on Ilott, while Nikita Mazepin also took advantage of the Ferrari Academy driver’s tyre woes to claim sixth as he rose into the points from 13th.

Charouz Racing System’s Pedro Piquet claimed his first points in F2 with seventh place, while Ilott scored the final point on offer in eighth to extend his championship lead.

Ilott had engaged in a frantic late tussle with Christian Lundgaard over P8 at the final complex of corners and initially lost out, before the ART Grand Prix driver was handed a five-second time penalty for overtaking Ilott off-track, meaning the Dane dropped to 11th.

Louis Deletraz and Dan Ticktum completed the top 10 for Charouz and DAMS, who only fielded one driver with Sean Gelael ruled out after he sustained a back injury in an airborne incident with Campos Racing’s Jack Aitken on the final lap of Saturday’s feature race.

FULL FIA FORMULA 2 SPRINT RACE RESULTS IN BARCELONA.