| It was warm and sunny again at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain for the 37 lap Feature Race at the second round of the 2017 FIA F2 Championship with air and track temperatures of 27° and 45° degrees respectively. Following yesterday’s Qualifying the two Racing Engineering drivers, Louis Delétraz and Gustav Malja, were starting from 11th and 18th respectively with Louis starting on the Pirelli P Zero Orange hard tyre compound tyres and Gustav on the Pirelli P Zero White soft compound.
Louis lost a position to Markelov at the start but a few corners later Cecotto missed his braking and hit Louis forcing him into a spin that dropped him to the back of the field and his finished the opening lap 20th and last. An incident to two other cars promoted the Racing Engineering car to 18th and he began to push hard passing Jeffri and Merhi to lie 16th on lap seven and he soon gained more positions as cars ahead, that had started on soft tyres, took their pitstops and two laps later he was 8th. A Safety Car period from lap nine to thirteen closed the cars up and a great restart from Louis saw him pass Nato and he was now closing in on Sette Camara and on lap fourteen he passed the MP Motorsport car to take 7th, his next targets were De Vries and Leclerc who were 3.7 seconds ahead. On lap twenty-one he was passed by Ghiotto who was on new tyres and a lap later Matsushita, also on new tyres, dropped him another position.
On lap twenty-five Louis took his pitstop to switch to the soft tyre compound and he was now in 15th place and setting some quick lap times and he was soon up to 12th but he lost a position to Sette Camara in the closing laps to finish 13th.
Gustav was passed by Canamasas on the first lap but the young Swede was soon gaining places as he passed Gelael, Merhi and Sette Camara and incidents to other cars moved him up to 13th on lap three. On lap seven Gustav took his mandatory pitstop to switch to hard tyres and he resumed the track in 17th and, following the Safety Car Period, he was involved in a hard battle with Cecotto. By lap twenty the Racing Engineering car was 13th as other cars ran into problems and on lap twenty-three he passed Cecotto and Boschung to move up to 11th and a lap later it was 10th. As the cars that had started on the hard compound tyres took their pitstops Gustav was promoted to 6th place which became 4th on lap twenty-eight.
As the race entered its final laps Gustav was now suffering from worn tyres as they had done almost twenty-five laps and he soon lost places to Albon and Rowland who were on fresh soft compound tyres and he was now fighting hard with King. However, on the final lap, he lost one more spot to Latifi who also had a tyre advantage to take a fighting 7th at the flag, showing the team strategy to start him on the soft compound tyres was the right one. Gustav’s hard-fought 7th place will see him start tomorrow’s Sprint Race from second on the reversed grid with an excellent chance to finish on the podium. For Louis, it was a disappointing result with the opening lap incident with Cecotto robbing him of any chance for a good result but he will be battling hard tomorrow to score his first points in F2. |
