Hungaroring F3: Prema's Callum Ilott dominates second race

Ilott converted his pole position into the lead, saw off an attack from fellow-front-row starter Joel Eriksson over the first two corners, and then used his Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes to extend its advantage on every one of the 22 laps to finish 8.6 seconds in front.

Eriksson gave a forlorn chase, and the Swede's Motopark Dallara-Volkswagen seemed to have an edge in sector one, but even when BMW junior Eriksson was setting purple sectors he was still losing ground over the whole lap to Ilott.

"The start wasn't my best, and Joel challenged me through the first two corners, but after that I edged away a little bit," said Ilott.

"We expected the tyres to degrade but we didn't have as much degradation as we thought, and I was able to keep pushing throughout the race.

"Pretty uneventful - but interesting for me!"

Eriksson had to monitor Prema's Ferrari junior Guan Yu Zhou throughout the race as Zhou finished third during an impressive weekend, taking a podium as he did as an F3 rookie in 2016.

Zhou did come under pressure in the closing stages from Hitech GP's Jake Hughes, but he never got into a position to seriously challenge for what could have been his second podium of the weekend.

Hughes seemed to lose a little ground at the start of the race swerving around Lando Norris, who stalled his Carlin car from third on the grid and was 15th of the 18 runners by the time he got to Turn 1.

Championship leader Maximilian Gunther, who started his Prema car sixth on the grid, got beaten for fifth into Turn 1 by fellow German David Beckmann.

Although Gunther pressured Beckmann in the early stages, it was a challenge he couldn't sustain and he fell away to take sixth, while Beckmann - on his first weekend with Motopark - scored his first points of the season.

There was a flurry of excitement in the battle for seventh just after half-distance, when Carlin's Force India protege Jehan Daruvala looked feisty in his attempts to prise the position away from the Van Amersfoort Racing car of Joey Mawson, but Mawson settled again and claimed the place.

That allowed Prema man Mick Schumacher to close a little, while Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) took the final point.

Norris managed to force his way past Harrison Newey - who started on the back row after wrecking his tyres with a qualifying spin - to take 14th place with four laps to go, and that set up a last-ditch battle for 13th with Pedro Piquet before the Brazilian claimed the place.

It means Norris has dropped to fourth in the points, 27 behind Gunther, 15 adrift of Eriksson and one short of Ilott.

RESULTS - 22 LAPS