Yuki Tsunoda benefitted from a sensational late collision between race leaders, and PREMA teammates, Robert Shwartzman and Mick Schumacher, to take his first ever FIA Formula 2 victory in the Sprint Race at Silverstone. Kiwi Marcus Armstrong finished out of the points in 14th position and now sits 11th overall in the championship.
“Yes I am very happy for that, the first P1 of the year,” enthused the Honda Formula Dream Project driver after his maiden F2 win.
“The tyre was still there at the end, I had the confidence in the last laps that I had a good chance of P1 even if they had not collided. Anyway we had a little bit of luck and didn’t have to put in a lot of effort to overtake them,” Tsunoda added with his classic smile.
“It was a good end to the weekend, very good. The pace was OK from the start but not great, missing a bit actually. In Qualifying I felt quite good about my lap but there was a bit missing in the pace. We don’t really know why yet but that is something we have to improve for Barcelona.”
The Carlin driver patiently sat behind the PREMA duo for the first 19 laps of the race, steering clear of any drama and putting him in the perfect position to benefit from their coming together. He swept into first with two laps to go, and calmly closed out the victory to become the 25th different F2 winner since the Championship began.
Schumacher was able to retain second place at the chequered flag, and avoided a penalty as Race Control deemed the collision to be a racing incident.
Shwartzman suffered damage from their clash and dropped out of the top ten entirely. This promoted Jack Aitken up to third for his second podium of both the weekend, and the season.
Callum Ilott, who took the Championship lead in the Feature Race on Saturday, managed sixth place to stretch his lead at the top of the table by a further four points.
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