Latifi survives late restart for F2 sprint race win

Nicholas Latifi scored his second Formula Two victory of the season after withstanding a late Safety Car restart to hold off Juan Manuel Correa.

Sean Gelael passed pole sitter Nikita Mazepin at the start and kept his lead initially after an early Safety Car period. But Latifi tracked down and passed the Prema driver soon after the first restart, and was never headed from then on.

Feature race winner Jack Aitken rose through the field to take third place. He overtook Nyck de Vries when the final restart took place with two laps to go, but was frustrated by the amount of time lost behind the Safety Car.

The second Safety Car period was triggered when Giuliano Alesi hit the barrier while trying to pass Guanyu Zhou. Once his car was cleared Aitken, running third, made a terrific restart and pressured Correa into running deep at turn one. But as Latifi and Correa slowed at the corner, Aitken had to back off, which allowed De Vries through.

At the next corner Luca Ghiotto, Jordan King and Mazepin all crashed out, causing the third Safety Car period. As the race clock ran down a frustrated Aitken, who had suffered a DRS fault earlier in the race, asked why they were taking so long to clear the track.

After the restart Mick Schumacher dived past Gelael for fifth. That left his Prema team mate tumbling down the order, allowing Sergio Sette Camara and Dorian Boccolacci to take advantage. Gelael beat Callum Ilott to the final pooint for eighth place by a mere five thousandths of a second.

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