» Formula 2: Ghiotto hangs on to claim victory

The FIA Formula 2 Championship delivered another tyre wear dominated thriller at the Hungaroring, with Luca Ghiotto narrowly holding out Callum Ilott to win Sunday’s Sprint Race and claim his first victory of the 2020 season.

Driving for the new-to-F2 Hitech Grand Prix team, Ghiotto gambled on not making a pit stop during the 28-lap Sprint Race and nursed his fast-fading tyres to cross the finish line just 0.4 seconds in front of Ilott who gambled on a mid-race switch to soft tyres.

The Sprint Race format does not typically warrant a pit stop, but such was the extreme tyre wear being experienced by the field that many gambled on doing so.

Having qualified on pole for Saturday’s Feature Race but failed to convert it into victory after his tyres fell away, Ilott was not going to fall foul of the same error on Sunday. Starting from the reversed-grid pole, Ilott once again jumped into the lead from Ghiotto and built an early four-second advantage over the Italian.

Last year’s Sprint Race winner Mick Schumacher was running in third place and was the first of the frontrunners to gamble on a pit stop, swapping his Medium tyres for Soft rubber. A slow change on the right-front wheel put paid the to the German’s aspirations of victory, however.

Ilott followed suit on the next lap, surrendering his lead to Ghiotto. With ten laps to go, he rejoined with a 40-second deficit to the Italian who opted to nurse his Medium tyres to the end.

Ilott was immediately getting an advantage out of his softer rubber and cut into Ghiotto’s lead at an average of four seconds lap. With one lap to go, he was 4.9 seconds behind, but a lock-up by Ghiotto at Turn 1 saw the gap between the two slashed even further.

Ghiotto had Ilott right under his rear wing as they went through the final corner, somehow hanging on to cross the line just 0.4 seconds clear.

Schumacher recovered from his slow pit stop to finish in third place, mirroring his result in the Feature Race won by teammate Robert Shwartzmann who finished in fourth.

Ghiotto’s teammate Nikita Mazepin backed up his first ever Formula 2 podium on Saturday with a solid drive to fifth ahead of Louis Delétraz (Charouz Racing System) and Jehan Daruvala (Carlin) who both opted to start the race on Soft tyres and were forced into a mid-race pit stop when their rubber fell away.

Shwartzmann continues to lead the Formula 2 Drivers’ Championship standings on 81 points ahead of Ilott (63) and Christian Lundgaard (43) who failed to add to his tally this weekend thanks to his retirement in the Feature Race.

2020 FIA Formula 2 Championship – Hungary Sprint Race Final Classification (28 laps)
	Driver	Team / Entry	Laps	Result	Pts
1.	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech Grand Prix	28	45:04.725	15
2.	Callum Ilott	UNI Virtuosi Racing	28	+ 0.423	12
3.	Mick Schumacher	Prema Racing	28	+ 11.762	10
4.	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Racing	28	+ 13.818	8
5.	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech Grand Prix	28	+ 15.152	6
6.	Louis Delétraz	Charouz Racing System	28	+ 23.451	4
7.	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin Motorsport	28	+ 23.831	2
8.	Guan Yu Zhou	UNI Virtuosi Racing	28	+ 32.230	3
9.	Marcus Armstrong	ART Grand Prix	28	+ 34.275
10.	Giuliano Alesi	BWT HWA Racelab	28	+ 39.283
11.	Nobuhara Matsushita	MP Motorsport	28	+ 42.731
12.	Sean Gelael	DAMS	28	+ 44.953
13.	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	28	+ 46.926
14.	Artem Markelov	BWT HWA Racelab	28	+ 51.733
15.	Pedro Piquet	Charouz Racing System	28	+ 52.231
16.	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	28	+ 55.890
17.	Roy Nissany	Trident Racing	28	+ 1:04.365
18.	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin Motorsport	28	+ 1:13.806
19.	Jack Aitken	Campos Racing	28	+ 1:15.656
20.	Marino Sato	Trident Racing	28	+ 1:23.059
21.	Guilherme Samaia	Campos Racing	27	1 lap behind
	Not Classified	Team / Entry	Laps	Reason
NC.	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	23	5 laps behind

Championship Points:

Championship points are awarded on the results of the Final Classification of each Sprint Race to the race’s top-ten finishers and their corresponding teams on a 15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 sliding scale.
Two bonus points are awarded to the driver finishing in the top-ten (Guan Yu Zhou) and their corresponding team (UNI-Virtuosi) for posting the fastest lap of the race by a top-ten finisher.

Post-Race Penalties: