Eng wins dramatic second race
Philipp Eng won this weekend's second incident-packed Formula 2 race on the streets of Marrakech
The Austrian, who also won race two at Silverstone two weeks ago, survived persistent assaults from race one winner Dean Stoneman to hold onto his lead and move clear at the head of the championship standings.
The race spent its first eight laps behind the safety car after Ricardo Teixeira hit the back of Ivan Samarin under braking for a chicane and barrel rolled spectacularly. Four cars were eliminated in the accident, which took almost half the race to clear.
When racing resumed, Eng broke away while Stoneman set about regaining the second place he lost off the line from Johan Jokinen. The Dane left too much of a hole at the final hairpin and Stoneman chucked his car up the inside.
Jokinen tried to get him back at Turn 1 but was on the inside and reluctant to take a risk there after crashing in the same scenario in Saturday's race.
Stoneman then charged up to the back of Eng, taking four tenths of a second per lap out of the leader. But every time he caught Eng, he would make a lunge or a mistake and drop back again. He was tempted to try an all or nothing move at Turn 4 on the final lap with a late lunge from a long way back. But it would have been nothing, so he elected to abort and settle for second.
Jokinen eventually crashed out at the second chicane on the back straight, leaving Will Bratt and Kazim Vasiliauskas to squabble over the final podium place. Vasiliauskas had taken it earlier in the race after Bratt ran wide and delayed himself, but the Briton boosted back ahead four laps from the end.
Jolyon Palmer made his way up to fifth after an earlier mistake, taking it in turns with Armaan Ebrahim to skip chicanes on the final lap.
Pos Driver Time/Gap 1. Philipp Eng 17 laps/35m42.174s 2. Dean Stoneman +1.955 3. Will Bratt +5.146 4. K.Vasiliauskas +8.534 5. Jolyon Palmer +15.987 6. Armaan Ebrahim +16.851 7. Sergei Afanasiev +20.375 8. Paul Rees +21.785 9. Kelvin Snoeks +24.990 10. Benjamin Lariche +28.853 11. Natalia Kowalska +40.783 12. Plamen Kralev +48.939 13. Ajith Kumar + 2 laps 14. Mihai Marinescu + 2 laps Not classified Johan Jokinen 12 laps Ricardo Teixeira 0 laps Benjamin Bailly 0 laps Jack Clarke 0 laps P.Sureshwaren 0 laps Ivan Samarin 0 laps Nicola de Marco 0 laps Fastest lap, Stoneman 1m31.312s
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