Shwartzman dominates Baku Formula 2 sprint race to take first win of 2021

Shwartzman quickly established a lead over Jehan Daruvala, but was pegged back by the early Safety Car. 

Felipe Drugovich hit the back of Oscar Piastri, forcing the Prema into Liam Lawson.

This meant both Piastri and Lawson were forced to retire on the opening lap, while Drugovich was handed a 10-second time penalty for his actions.

Once the race got back underway, Shwartzman nailed the restart and quickly broke the one-second window to Daruvala, meaning he wouldn’t be put under any pressure down the start-finish straight. 

As Daruvala struggled for pace, it allowed Carlin teammate Dan Ticktum to make his way up to second.

Starting from sixth, Ticktum seemed to be the last of the late brakers as he overtook Ralph Boschung, Marcus Armstrong and Guanyu Zhou in quick succession.

Ticktum didn’t have the pace to close the gap to Shwartzman, who ran out a comfortable winner by over five seconds.

Guanyu Zhou completed the podium having overtaken Daruvala on Lap 9 into Turn 1. 

Daruvala managed to maintain fourth despite struggling for pace, while Théo Pourchaire recovered from a difficult Safety Car restart to continue his impressive run of points finishes with fifth ahead of Boschung.

Armstrong dropped to seventh in the closing laps, losing out to Pourchaire and then Boschung on Lap 20.

Juri Vips couldn’t get past Armstrong to the line as he finished eighth.

Drugovich finished ninth on track but his penalty dropped him to 14th meaning David Beckmann and Bent Viscaal completed the top ten.

Click here for the full race results from the first Baku sprint race.