Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Sette Camara wins Abu Dhabi Formula 2 opener, DAMS takes teams' title

McLaren Formula 1 junior Sergio Sette Camara delivered one of the comeback drives of the year in a dramatic final feature race of the Formula 2 season at Abu Dhabi

The top three started on the rapidly degrading supersoft tyres, with Louis Deletraz and Callum Ilott jumping polesitter Sette Camara to run line astern until the pit stops at the end of lap six.

Because of how quickly the tyre dropped off, as the lap count ticked past six the drivers who started on the soft tyre - much more durable than the supersoft - moved ahead, with Deletraz's Carlin team-mate Nobuharu Matsushita heading Guanyu Zhou of Virtuosi Racing for most of the race as the top two cleared off into the distance.

Renault junior Zhou hauled in a gap of over five seconds to catch Matsushita with five laps to go, but Matsushita pitted and got the undercut on his rival to emerge in fourth.

The supersoft tyres proved as much as seven seconds a lap quicker than those who had took the softs at lap six, and Matsushita and Zhou hauled in Deletraz to take second and third.

But Sette Camara made the most of the dicing team-mates and disappeared up the road, the Brazilian taking a first F2 feature race win.

He had looked adrift of Deletraz in the middle of the race, but at the end of the stint the Brazilian began to close in and he made the decisive move at Turn 8 on lap 28/31.

The win that appeared to be Deletraz's to lose was soon Sette Camara's to take in comfortably his best F2 performance for DAMS.

His victory sealed the teams title for DAMS, and boosts his championship as he moved past Luca Ghiotto into third in the standings, and is only six points off team-mate Nicholas Latifi in second with Sunday's race remaining.

Top rookie Zhou scored his fifth podium of his rookie year, fighting the much more experienced Matsushita all the way.

Deletraz just held on for fourth ahead of Ferrari junior and Sauber Junior Team driver Ilott, who couldn't live with Sette Camara and Deletraz's pace on the soft tyre in the middle of the race.

Ghiotto - Zhou's Virtuosi Racing team-mate - took sixth from 10th on the grid and crucially finished ahead of title rival Latifi.

Latifi lost time as DAMS double-stacked its drivers in the pitstops - arguably still a good decision as the alternative was to leave him out on old supesoft tyres - but he made up the places lost again on track in an excellent second stint to take seventh and second on thr grid for Sunday's race.

A storming effort from Trident's Ferrari junior Giuliano Alesi means the Frenchman will start on pole for the reversed-grid race on Sunday, beating fellow Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher and ART Grand Prix's Nikita Mazepin.

Mazepin's team-mate and 2019 F2 champion Nyck de Vries had a nightmare race where he took 13th from sixth on the grid as he struggled with his tyres.

The new Mercedes Formula E driver finished three spots behind team-mate Mazepin, despite the latter starting at the back of the grid.

Result - 31 laps

Pos Driver Team Gap
1 Sergio Sette Camara DAMS 1h02m17.011s
2 Nobuharu Matsushita Carlin 5.149s
3 Guanyu Zhou UNI-Virtuosi 7.765s
4 Louis Deletraz Carlin 10.919s
5 Callum Ilott Sauber Junior Team by Charouz 15.981s
6 Luca Ghiotto UNI-Virtuosi 20.385s
7 Nicholas Latifi DAMS 25.785s
8 Giuliano Alesi Trident 32.249s
9 Mick Schumacher Prema Racing 41.902s
10 Nikita Mazepin ART Grand Prix 48.680s
11 Jack Aitken Campos Racing 49.560s
12 Jordan King MP Motorsport 50.479s
13 Nyck de Vries ART Grand Prix 53.455s
14 Christian Lundgaard Trident 53.963s
15 Matevos Isaakyan Sauber Junior Team by Charouz 56.593s
16 Tatiana Calderon BWT Arden 58.602s
17 Sean Gelael Prema Racing 1m02.900s
18 Marino Sato Campos Racing 1m37.470s
- Artem Markelov BWT Arden Retirement
- Mahaveer Raghunathan MP Motorsport Retirement


Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article FIA to present fatal Hubert Spa F2 crash findings to WMSC next week
Next article DAMS boss dedicates F2 teams' title to late founder Driot

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe