Robert Shwartzman took his fourth win of the season and first since Spa in the Bahrain sprint race, while Callum Ilott’s championship hopes took a big hit after a collision with Jehan Daruvala.
Shwartzman got a clean launch from reverse grid pole to hold the lead from Yuki Tsunoda, who jumped Marcus Armstrong for second off the line. Nikita Mazepin was slow away, allowing Daruvala and Mick Schumacher to take fourth and fifth respectively.
Tsunoda had strong pace to pressure Shwartzman through the opening sequence of corners, but before the end of the lap the Carlin driver picked up a right rear puncture and was forced to pit.
Without Tsunoda to defend from, Shwartzman was able to start putting in fastest laps and pull out a gap over Armstrong. Further back, Mazepin recovered from his slow start by taking fourth from Schumacher on lap 4, then demoting Daruvala off the podium a lap later.
Shwartzman had a gap of almost three seconds over Armstrong at the start of lap 6. But this was wiped out when Theo Pourchaire stopped on track after his fire extinguisher went off in the cockpit, and the safety car was deployed.
The race restarted on lap 7, with Mazepin putting immediate pressure on Armstrong and Schumacher battling to hold fifth over title rival Ilott.
Schumacher had a big lockup going into Turn 10 and looked to be heading off the track. Ilott took advantage of the error by diving to the inside of his rival, but ended up locking his own tyres and spearing into Daruvala ahead.
Daruvala retired on the spot while Ilott tumbled out of the points with damage to his front wing and nose. Schumacher managed to get away without any contact, although he lost position to Pedro Piquet, who navigated the incident to emerge in fourth before the virtual safety car was called.
When the VSC was withdrawn on lap 9 Armstrong reacted well to put pressure on Shwartzman, but was unable to make a move for the lead stick. Armstrong ended up losing second instead to Mazepin after locking up at T1, then was passed for third by Piquet on lap 12.
But although Mazepin had much more pace than Piquet and Armstrong behind him, he didn’t have enough to make any impact on Shwartzman’s lead. Having been able to conserve his tyres out front while Mazepin hurt his fighting through the field, Shwartzman continued to pull away over the second half of the race and took the chequered flag with five seconds in hand over Mazepin.
Behind the podium battles Schumacher was running in fifth but didn’t have the tyre life to take any more advantage of Ilott dropping out of the points. On lap 15 he was dropped to sixth by Guanyu Zhou, then immediately came under fire from Christian Lundgaard.
Schumacher got some brief respite on lap 17 when an unsuccessful move from Lundgaard at Turn 4 left the Dane instead defending from Felipe Drugovich in eighth. But shortly after the trio were caught by Louis Deletraz, who had taken the chance to pit under the earlier safety car and had the advantage of much fresher tyres.
Over the next five laps, Deletraz picked off Drugovich, Lundgaard, Schumacher, Zhou and Armstrong to run fourth behind his Charouz teammate Piquet. This then became third on lap 22, when Piquet pulled to the side of the road with a mechanical problem.
Armstrong managed to hold on to fourth ahead of Zhou, while Lundgaard pipped Schumacher for sixth on the final lap and Drugovich took the final point in eighth.
Shwartzman’s win means the Russian moves to fourth in the championship and is still mathematically in contention for the title. With Ilott failing to score, Schumacher now has a 14-point lead over his nearest rival going into the final round next week.
Full race result:
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Points |
| 1 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema Racing | 15 |
| 2 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech Grand Prix | 12 |
| 3 | Louis Deletraz (FL) | Charouz Racing System | 12 |
| 4 | Marcus Armstrong | ART Grand Prix | 8 |
| 5 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi Racing | 6 |
| 6 | Christian Lundgaard | ART Grand Prix | 4 |
| 7 | Mick Schumacher | Prema Racing | 2 |
| 8 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 1 |
| 9 | Roy Nissany | Trident | |
| 10 | Artem Markelov | BWT HWA Racelab | |
| 11 | Marino Sato | Trident | |
| 12 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | |
| 13 | Giuliano Alesi | MP Motorsport | |
| 14 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | |
| 15 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | |
| 16 | Callum Ilott | UNI-Virtuosi Racing | |
| Ret. | Jack Aitken | Campos Racing | |
| Ret. | Guilherme Samaia | Campos Racing | |
| Ret. | Pedro Piquet | Charouz Racing System | |
| Ret. | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech Grand Prix | |
| Ret. | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | |
| Ret. | Theo Pourchaire | BWT HWA Racelab |