| Following yesterday’s Qualifying, Racing Engineering’s Gustav Malja was starting 12th with Louis Delétraz just two places behind him for the Feature Race today at Silverstone, at round six of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship. However, a post-qualifying penalty for Albon promoted Gustav to 11th, a boost to his aim of scoring more points. The weather was cloudy but, fortunately, the rain that had affected the F1 Qualifying had cleared and it was cool again with air and track temperatures of 19° and 35°. The two Racing Engineering cars were starting on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres as were the majority of the cars.
Three cars stalled on the grid so the start was aborted and the cars did an additional formation lap so the race was reduced to 28 laps and Gustav gained another place and Louis two as the stalled cars started from the pits. Gustav lost two places to Ghiotto and Gelael at the start falling to 12th and he finished the opening lap chased by his teammate and on the second lap he was passed by Louis to fall to 13th, 0.7 seconds ahead of Visoiu. Gustav was not able to keep up the pace he had shown in Qualifying and over the next two laps he fell back to 16th as he was overtaken by Boschung, Visoiu and Jeffri. Lap seven saw Gustav take his pitstop as he took on the hard Pirelli tyres falling to 18th position which became 17th as he demoted Jeffri. On lap sixteen the Racing Engineering driver passed Illot for 16th and he began to close the gap of 2.4 seconds to Sette Camara.
With six laps left Gustav was right behind Boschung who had made a late pitstop but with the Campos car on soft tyres he quickly dropped away and he was soon racing on his own with Sette Camara almost four seconds ahead and Jeffri 5.8 seconds behind and he finished the race in 14th.
Louis held onto 12th place at the start and he was soon right behind Gustav and at the start of the second lap he passed the young Swede to take 11th and he was less than a second behind Gelael on lap three. On lap six Louis pitted to switch to the Pirelli P Zero Orange hard compound tyres and he resumed the track in 17th. By lap fourteen, the halfway point of the race, Louis was up to 15th and closing very quickly on Illot who was 1.4 seconds ahead and at the end of the lap he took 14th and his next target was Gelael who was seven seconds ahead. Although Louis was pushing hard the Arden driver was lapping a little faster and on lap nineteen the gap had opened out to 9.8 seconds and Sette Camara was closing in. Late pitstops moved the Racing Engineering car up to 12th but Sette Camara was now right behind him but Louis refused to give way and he held on to 12th at the chequered flag. Racing Engineering had gone into this race hoping to score more points but neither driver had the pace to achieve this but the team will continue work on the cars and tomorrow’s Sprint Race will be another chance to score. |
