Luca Ghiotto took his first win of the season in the Hungary sprint race, beating Callum Ilott after risking an alternative strategy to the rest of the field.
Ghiotto made a great start from fifth on the grid to second behind reverse polesitter Ilott. Behind, his Hitech teammate Nikita Mazepin continued his strong Hungaroring form to jump up to fourth place, while Jehan Daruvala slipped from the second row of the grid down to ninth.
Ghiotto and Ilott spent the opening phase of the race trading fastest laps as the Italian tried to put pressure on the lead, although Ilott was able to maintain a steady gap of over three seconds.
On lap 10 the first signs of the rapid tyre degradation that would define the race came when Louis Deletraz, struggling on softs, was passed by Mick Schumacher, Mazepin and Robert Shwartzman. On lap 13 Daruvala and Sean Gelael both stopped to change their own tyres, and were followed by Deletraz a lap later.
At the front Ilott was having the same struggles, as Ghiotto was able to close down the gap to the UNI-Virtuosi. On lap 17 Ilott, together with Schumacher and Shwartzman, finally stopped to change his worn mediums for softs. A slurry of pit stops then followed, leaving Ghiotto and Giuliano Alesi, the only drivers who elected not to change tyres, running first and second with half a minute in hand over Ilott.
But despite conceding track position, Ilott had a clear advantage from his fresher tyres. On lap 23 Ilott caught and passed Alesi, then began reeling in Ghiotto at a rate of almost five seconds a lap. On the penultimate lap Ilott was just 2.7s away from Ghiotto, which then became 0.7s when Ghiotto locked up through Turn 1.
However, Ilott was unable to affect a pass on Ghiotto on the final lap despite having much better traction through the corners, and Ghiotto was able to hold him off to win by four tenths.
Schumacher took his second consecutive third place after an assertive drive through the reverse grid field. Shwartzman finished fourth behind him, and Mazepin reinforced his strong form in yesterday’s feature race with fifth place. Deletraz recovered to sixth ahead of Daruvala, and Guanyu Zhou took three points with eighth place and the fastest lap.
After round 3 of the 2020 championship, Shwartzman holds an 18-point lead over Ilott. Christian Lundgaard remains third despite not scoring in either race at the Hungaroring, but is now only four points clear of Schumacher. In the teams’ standings, Prema have moved into the lead with 120 points, leading UNI-Virtuosi and ART.
