Hungary F2: Honda F1 junior Matsushita takes sprint race victory

Nyck de Vries finished third after a close fight with DAMS driver Rowland in the final laps, as championship leader Charles Leclerc came home fourth.

At the start, front row starters Alexander Albon and Norman Nato reacted well enough to the lights, but quickly got swallowed up by the charging Matsushita and Luca Ghiotto.

Leclerc tried to repeat his race one trick of sticking around the outside at Turn 1 but he got edged out and had to take to the run-off, staying in fifth.

On the inside of the left-hander, Rowland and de Vries squeezed through to leap up to third and fourth respectively, as Albon and Nato found themselves shuffled down to sixth and seventh.

Matsushita immediately began to pull clear of Ghiotto and his lead was up to two-seconds by lap seven of 28.

From there, apart from a minor slip at Turn 4 on lap 11 when he ran wide and lost a second, the ART Grand Prix driver was never threatened and he eased into a clear lead.

Behind the leader, Ghiotto slipped back into the clutches of de Vries and Rowland, and Leclerc soon made it a four-way scrap for second.

Ghiotto's defence last for much of the race but on lap 21, de Vries lunged up the inside in a late move at Turn 2 to steal second.

With Russian Time driver Ghiotto struggling for grip, Rowland hotly pursued him and nipped by at Turn 9, with Leclerc following him through just seconds before the virtual safety car was activated.

The disruption was needed as Robert Visoiu spun at Turn 1 as he attacked Trident's Nabil Jeffri.

The pair made contact leaving Visoiu out on the spot and needing to be recovered.

The race was not long restarted when Jeffri ran wide at Turn 4 and as he rejoined, he collided with Sergio Canamasas on the approach to the next corner, spinning the Rapax driver around and putting him out.

When the race was finally able to run to the flag, Rowland cut into de Vries' slender advantage and grabbed second on the penultimate lap heading into Turn 3.

Matsushita's winning margin was a comfortable 4.3 seconds as Leclerc fell away from the fight for second as he grappled with a clutch problem.

But the Ferrari F1 junior held on to finish fourth, just ahead of the battling Nato and Nicolas Latifi, but his championship lead is now 50 points over Rowland.

Albon ended up seventh after pushing Ghiotto down to eighth with an opportunistic move at the final corner late on, as Artem Markelov - racing after his dramatic exit to race one - and Sean Gelael rounded out the top 10.

Jordan King finished 11th for MP Motorsport and Antonio Fuoco was 17th after failing to get off the line in his Prema Racing-run car.

RACE TWO RESULT:

DRIVERS' STANDINGS