| It was warm and sunny once again for the third successive day with air and track temperatures of 24° and 27° degrees respectively at the Yas Marina circuit, Abu Dhabi for the final Sprint Race of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship. Following yesterday’s Feature Race, Racing Engineering’s Nyck De Vries and Gustav Malja were initially placed 6th and 13th respectively but, Rowland and Fuoco were disqualified for technical infringements after the race, promoting Nyck to 4th, so he would start from 5th on the reversed grid, and Gustav to 11th. Today’s race was held at 14:10 local time so the track floodlights were not required and both drivers were using the Pirelli P Zero Yellow Soft compound tyres for the 22-lap race.
Nyck made a good start and was able to pass King on the outside of the first corner and at the end of the opening lap he was lying 4th behind Matsushita and ahead of Leclerc. Over the next five laps the gap to Matsushita remained constant and he was now four seconds ahead of Leclerc but the Prema car was lapping a little faster in the clear air. As the race reached the eleventh lap, the half-way point, Nyck was 2.7 seconds behind Matsushita and Leclerc had closed the gap to the young Dutchman and he used his DRS to demote the Racing Engineering car to 5th.
Ghiotto now began to close on Nyck who was suffering from tyre degradation and on lap 13 he fell to 6th as Ghiotto passed him. With six laps left he was now just 0.6 seconds ahead of Markelov and he was soon passed by both the Russian driver and Rowland to fall to 8th. On lap nineteen Nyck and Delétraz made contact and the Racing Engineering car left the track, losing a place to Sette-Camara leaving him out of the points in 9th position.
Gustav held 11th position on the opening lap and he was soon involved in a close battle with Delétraz ahead and Gelael behind but on lap three he was passed by a flying Rowland who was making his way up from the back of the grid. On lap six it was announced that the Racing Engineering driver, who was lying in 11th position, had been given a five second penalty for an incident between himself and Rowland on the opening lap. As the race reached half-way Gustav was 2.8 seconds behind Sette-Camara and 1.1 ahead of Palou but on lap thirteen he lost a place to the Campos driver to lie 12th and two laps later it was 13th as Merhi overtook him. Gustav’s lap times were now falling off and he lost another position to Fuoco on lap sixteen and in the last three laps Gustav fell further back to cross the finishing line in 17th and last.
A very disappointing final race of the season for the Racing Engineering team with both cars suffering from tyre degradation and neither man able to score any points. All the F2 teams will be staying in Yas Marina for a three-day post -season test starting next Thursday. |
