Silverstone F2: Mazepin charges to maiden victory

Felipe Drugovich qualified on pole position but made a sluggish start on hard tyres, allowing Prema's Mick Schumacher to immediately sprint into the lead from third on the grid.

However, Schumacher’s stint at the front was short-lived as Mazepin passed him around the outside of Stowe to snatch the top spot.

Both Mazepin and Schumacher pitted together at the end of Lap 8 to get rid of their medium tyres, while Drugovich, Guanyu Zhou - who had made his way up the pack from eighth - and Jack Aitken stayed out having started on hards.

As the race progressed, the momentum started shifting towards the soft tyre-starters, even though they lost a considerable chunk of time in traffic.

Indeed, when Drugovich entered the pits for his mandatory stop at the end of lap 19, he emerged on track in 12th place, 18 seconds behind Mazepin.

The Hitech GP driver cruised to the finish line from there on, finishing 5.3s clear of second-placed Zhou.

Unlike Drugovich, Renault junior Zhou was able to make the alternative strategy work, waiting until lap 22 to make his pitstop.

That gave him seven laps to recover lost ground on medium tyres, the Virtuosi driver passing Christian Lundgaard with two laps to go to claim second.

Red Bull junior Yuki Tsunoda secured the final spot on the podium after overtaking struggling ART driver Lundgaard on the last lap.

Meanwhile, Callum Ilott completed a heroic drive from the pitlane to finish just over 2.5s seconds behind Lundgaard in fifth.

The UNI-Virtuosi driver had originally qualified on the front row for the Silverstone feature race, but a stall on the formation lap meant his car had to be wheeled back to the pitlane.

But Ilott was on the pace immediately, jumping up to 14th in the first five laps before making further inroads to to secure his fifth top-five result of the year.

Louis Deletraz was classified sixth in the lead Charouz car, ahead of MP Motorsport's Drugovich, who had to settle for seventh after starting from pole.

DAMS driver Dan Ticktum charged through the field in the few laps to finish eighth and secure the reverse grid pole for Sunday’s sprint race, ahead of Schumacher, who fell down the order with excessive tyre wear.

MP Motorsport’s Nobuharu Matsushita crossed the finishing line in 10th to claim his first points finish since the season opener in Austria in July.

Prema driver Robert Shwartzman, who arrived at Silverstone as the championship leader, endured a difficult race en route to 14th.

Silverstone F2 feature race - Results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	24	Nikita Mazepin	HitechGP	29
2	3	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	29	5.323
3	7	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin	29	7.406
4	6	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	29	8.094
5	4	Callum Ilott	UNI-Virtuosi	29	10.764
6	11	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	29	16.121
7	15	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	29	18.136
8	2	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	29	20.580
9	20	Mick Schumacher	Prema Powerteam	29	24.742
10	14	Nobuharu Matsushita	MP Motorsport	29	25.319
11	12	Pedro Piquet	Charouz Racing System	29	26.230
12	8	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	29	26.527
13	9	Jack Aitken	Campos Racing	29	26.744
14	21	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	29	30.767
15	1	Sean Gelael	DAMS	29	31.585
16	5	Marcus Armstrong	ART Grand Prix	29	37.827
17	25	Luca Ghiotto	HitechGP	29	45.263
18	16	Artem Markelov	HWA AG	29	53.528
19	17	Giuliano Alesi	HWA AG	29	1'00.579
20	23	Marino Sato	Trident	29	1'12.128
21	10	Guilherme Samaia	Campos Racing	29	1'27.775
	22	Roy Nissany	Trident	4
View full results