Dan Ticktum took his first Formula 2 victory with a measured drive in the Silverstone sprint race.
Ticktum started the reverse grid race from pole. As he got away well, second-placed starter Felipe Drugovich was swamped off the line and dropped to fourth behind Christian Lundgaard and Louis Deletraz. Further back, Callum Ilott made contact with Yuki Tsunoda and spun the Carlin out of the race, earning himself a five second penalty.
Ticktum managed the opening phase of the race by breaking out of DRS range of Lundgaard by lap 4, then opening that to two seconds by lap 10.
Further back, Ilott was making rapid progress through the field as he tried to overcome his penalty. On lap 7 he passed Drugovich for fourth, then drove past both Deletraz and Lundgaard on lap 13 to get up into second.
Ilott then set about on a series of fast laps to overcome the two-second gap to Ticktum. But on lap 16, Ilott’s push resulted in him spinning out of the race at the final corner.
The safety car was brought out to recover Ilott’s car, and ART took the opportunity to pit Lundgaard from second for mediums. Although the stop dropped Lundgaard down to fifth, his faster tyres allowed him to get back up to third at the restart by passing Nikita Mazepin and Guanyu Zhou.
On the final lap Lundgaard then passed Deletraz to regain second, with only half a second separating him from Ticktum. But Lundgaard ultimately didn’t have enough time to catch the DAMS, and Ticktum led him and Deletraz across the line.
Zhou looked set to finish fourth but ran out of grip on the final lap and span out of the points. Jehan Daruvala inherited fourth place with Mazepin fifth and Drugovich sixth. Nobuharu Matsushita and Jack Aitken rounded out the points in seventh and eighth respectively.
Championship leader Robert Shwartzman finished the sprint race outside the points in P13, capping off a troubled weekend at Silverstone. However, he remains in the lead of the championship over Ilott after the Briton’s retirement. Lundgaard’s podium moves him four points behind Ilott in third, while Ticktum’s win elevates him above Zhou to fifth in the standings.
The top two in the teams’ championship remain unchanged, with UNI-Virtuosi and Prema both failing to score in the sprint race and staying on 124 and 122 points respectively. ART have closed the gap in third with 103 points. Find the full Formula 2 drivers’ and teams’ standings here.
Formula 2 returns to Silverstone next week in support of the Formula 1 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Full race result:
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Points |
| 1 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | 15 |
| 2 | Christian Lundgaard (FL) | ART Grand Prix | 14 |
| 3 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz Racing System | 10 |
| 4 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 8 |
| 5 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech Grand Prix | 6 |
| 6 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 4 |
| 7 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | 2 |
| 8 | Jack Aitken | Campos Racing | 1 |
| 9 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | |
| 10 | Marcus Armstrong | ART Grand Prix | |
| 11 | Artem Markelov | HWA Racelab | |
| 12 | Marino Sato | Trident | |
| 13 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema Racing | |
| 14 | Mick Schumacher | Prema Racing | |
| 15 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos Racing | |
| 16 | Roy Nissany | Trident | |
| 17 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz Racing System | |
| 18 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA Racelab | |
| 19 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech Grand Prix | |
| Ret. | Sean Gelael | DAMS | |
| Ret. | Callum Ilott | UNI-Virtuosi | |
| Ret. | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin |