| It was warm and sunny again today with air and track temperatures of 24° and 29° degrees respectively at the Yas Marina circuit, Abu Dhabi for the final Feature Race of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship. Following yesterday’s Qualifying Racing Engineering’s Nyck De Vries was starting from the front row of the grid, in second position, while Gustav Malja, who had a disappointing Qualifying finishing 18th, but he was promoted to 17th position following a penalty to Albon. Again, as in Qualifying, the race would be held under floodlights and both drivers were starting the 31-lap race on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow Soft compound tyres although most other drivers at the front had opted for the Red Supersoft tyres.
Nyck made a good start holding on to 2nd into the first corner and he was able to keep this position to the end of the lap despite the cars around him having the advantage of the softer tyres. As the cars started lap three the Racing Engineering car had closed on the leader, Markelov, and he was just 0.6 seconds behind with a similar lead over Rowland in 3rd. On lap four Nyck pulled out of the slipstream of Markelov’s car and pulled level with the Russian driver and the two cars made contact but they were able to continue without loss of position. By lap six the two cars were tied together and Nyck used his DRS to pass the Russian Time car and he quickly pulled away as the cars on the Supersoft tyres had to pit to change to the soft compound.
On lap seven the young Dutchman was leading Leclerc, who had also started on the Soft tyre, by 1.5 seconds and the Prema car closed the gap over the next four laps to close in to less than a second and gain the use of DRS. On lap eleven Nyck ran wide into one of the corners as his front brakes locked and he went off track cutting the corner and he was forced to allow Leclerc to pass him to avoid a penalty. With twenty laps remaining it was important for Nyck to preserve his tyres as he would delay his pitstop for as long as possible to minimise the number of laps on the Supersoft tyres. Nyck began to drop away from Leclerc and as the race reached its half-way point the gap to the leader was almost seven seconds.
By lap twenty the gap had opened a little more and Nyck was now eleven seconds back and, although he had a twelve second lead over Rowland and Markelov, these two cars had made their pitstops. On lap twenty-three, with eight laps to go, Nyck pitted resuming in 7th and he quickly passed Fuoco for 6th and as the remaining cars pitted he was up to 4th with just five laps to go but, with just two laps to go, the Supersoft tyres began to degrade badly and he was passed by Fuoco and Ghiotto to finish the race in 6th.
Gustav dropped to 18th at the start and he was chasing the car of Norris and he gained a place when the Campos car retired, and he quickly gained more places when the cars ahead on the Supersoft took their mandatory pitstops and by lap 10 he was up to 6th. He began to fall back again as the other drivers now had the benefit of fresh rubber and on lap fourteen he was in 8th. Gustav held onto this position for the next eight laps but the cars that had already pitted were closing and he would have to stop soon. On lap twenty-two the young Swede lost a place to Fuoco and on the following lap he pitted, returning to the track in 14th and in the final laps he was able to gain a place to finish 13th at the flag.
Tyre strategy for this race was always a gamble as the teams had not run the Soft/Supersoft combination before and, ultimately, the race results showed that starting on the Supersoft tyres was the better plan and Nyck (as well as Leclerc) was unable to make the Supersoft tyres last for eight laps. Tomorrow’s Sprint Race will see Nyck start from 3rd on the grid and he has a good chance to take the win. For Gustav it will be a case of gaining as many positions as possible to score points in the final race of the 2017 season. |
