F2 Abu Dhabi: Fuoco wins season finale, Norris seals P2 in points
Ferrari Formula 1 junior Antonio Fuoco ended the Formula 2 season with victory in the Abu Dhabi sprint race, as Lando Norris jumped Alexander Albon for second in the championship
Fuoco stole the lead from Roberto Merhi at the start from second on the grid and built a margin of over a second to avoid any challenge via DRS.
He managed that gap brilliantly, and when DRS was disabled as it was not working from mid-way through the race, he was able to scamper away to secure a second win of the season for his Charouz Racing System team.
Merhi came under heavy pressure from Norris on lap five of 21, and Norris drew alongside at Turn 8, the left-hander at the end of the track's main straight.
But Norris could not make the move stick and he then dropped back, while still steering clear of recently-crowned F2 title winner George Russell.
In the closing laps, Norris found speed and erased a gap of over two seconds to Merhi.
He dived up the inside of the hairpin of Turn 7 and then completed a great move at the end of the subsequent straight going into Turn 8, as Merhi locked up and went straight on while Norris made the corner and sealed second place.
Russell had got the inside line on Norris at the start of the race after winning the feature race on Saturday.
Both drivers launched off the line well, but Russell had a huge oversteer moment and produced an epic save to avoid washing out into the side of his Carlin rival and settled into fifth.
After a short VSC period for a crash between Sean Gelael and Tadasuke Makino, Russell was jumped by Louis Deletraz and fell to sixth, but managed to re-pass him before disposing of Prema Racing's Nyck de Vries on lap seven.
The 2019 Williams F1 driver ended 4.8s behind Merhi in fourth place.
Without DRS, the field struggled with overtaking, and de Vries held fifth ahead of Deletraz and Artem Markelov.
The erratic Markelov did well to avoid a track limits penalty as he went off the circuit over and over again trying to pass Deletraz.
But he could not find a way by and finished seventh in what is his and Russian Time's last race in F2.
Albon passed Luca Ghiotto for the final point in eighth on the last lap, ending weekend where he lost his chance to win the title with a stall in the first race and then conceded second in the championship to Norris by seven points.
Ghiotto could not rise from sixth on the grid in the sprint event after his brilliant drive from 16th to third in the feature race.
He fell backwards and ended up ninth ahead of pitlane starter Sergio Sette Camara, who stalled for the second race in a row, as did DAMS driver Nicholas Latifi.
Red Bull F1 junior Dan Ticktum's debut F2 weekend ended with a mechanical issue where his car was changing gear on its own.
Results - 21 laps
Pos | Driver | Team | Gap |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Antonio Fuoco | Charouz Racing System | 42m48.729s |
2 | Lando Norris | Carlin | 1.713s |
3 | Roberto Merhi | Campos Vexatec Racing | 3.672s |
4 | George Russell | ART Grand Prix | 8.548s |
5 | Nyck de Vries | Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing | 9.458s |
6 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz Racing System | 11.050s |
7 | Artem Markelov | RUSSIAN TIME | 12.960s |
8 | Alexander Albon | DAMS | 15.047s |
9 | Luca Ghiotto | Campos Vexatec Racing | 19.646s |
10 | Sergio Sette Camara | Carlin | 23.052s |
11 | Dorian Boccolacci | MP Motorsport | 24.429s |
12 | Nirei Fukuzumi | BWT Arden | 27.843s |
13 | Jack Aitken | ART Grand Prix | 30.535s |
14 | Alessio Lorandi | Trident | 33.205s |
15 | Nicholas Latifi | DAMS | 1m36.014s |
- | Dan Ticktum | BWT Arden | Retirement |
- | Niko Kari | MP Motorsport | Retirement |
- | Tadasuke Makino | RUSSIAN TIME | Retirement |
- | Sean Gelael | Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing | Retirement |
- | Arjun Maini | Trident | Not started |
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