Bailly takes home F2 win at Zolder

The 20-year-old, who hails from the outskirts of Liege just an hour south of the Zolder track, made a swift getaway from the front of the grid and never looked back.

For most of the race an intense multi-car battle kept his pursuers busy, but that takes nothing away from his win - Bailly was already two seconds clear when the fight behind got going on lap four.

His advantage was up to more than five seconds for the last lap and, following his best qualifying and race performances of the year on Saturday, and first pole this morning, he was able to savour his maiden F2 win to complete the set.

Jolyon Palmer had jumped Jack Clarke off the line to head the ongoing contest over second place. Clarke initially fell back, but closed back in as pressure on him mounted from Dean Stoneman behind, after the race one winner passed Will Bratt on lap six.

That quartet shared fastest laps between them and eventually Clarke got close enough to Palmer to be a threat. Unfortunately for him, before he could make his move he had to contend with Stoneman's advances. Clarke defended finely at the last and then first corners, and seemed well set for a hard-earned podium, until Stoneman slipped ahead into Turn 3, Kanaalbocht.

That freed Palmer to safety for the last two laps, just as a mistake from Bratt left Clarke unchallenged in fourth to the end.

Behind that group, Nicola de Marco's car failed while he was running sixth and Sergei Afanasiev spun out on the last lap trying to take eighth from Ivan Samarin.

Pos  Driver                   Time/Gap
 1.  Benjamin Bailly        31m10.817s
 2.  Jolyon Palmer            + 3.819s
 3.  Dean Stoneman            + 4.876s
 4.  Jack Clarke              + 6.569s
 5.  Will Bratt               + 7.173s
 6.  Mihai Marinescu         + 12.340s
 7.  Kazim Vasiliauskas      + 14.725s
 8.  Ivan Samarin            + 23.063s
 9.  Benjamin Lariche        + 32.054s
10.  Kelvin Snoeks           + 33.605s
11.  Natalia Kowalska        + 36.993s
12.  Philipp Eng             + 52.859s
13.  Paul Rees               + 57.121s
14.  Plamen Kralev         + 1m05.826s
15.  Sergei Afanasiev          + 1 lap

Retirements

     Nicola de Marco       14 laps
     Ricardo Teixeira      10 laps
     Parthiva Sureshwaren  4 laps
     Armaan Ebrahim        0 laps