Russian Time's Artem Markelov took a dominant win at Jerez in Sunday's Formula 2 sprint race, marking his fourth victory of the year.
With the grid being reversed for the spint race, F2 debutant Alex Palou started on pole position alongside Luca Ghiotto on the front row of the grid while Markelov lined up in fourth place.
Palou led for much of the race and held a commanding lead over Nicholas Latifi. With high tyre degredation however, the Spaniard eventually lost pace, had his lead slashed and was passed by Markelov who had been saving his tyres throughout the race.
With fresher rubber, Markelov was then able to establish his own lead, going on to take the checkered flag over the DAMS pair of Nicolas Latifi and Oliver Rowland who finished in second and third place.
Ghiotto finished in fourth place in the second Russian Time, putting in an impressive recovery drive after being punted off the the track on the opening tour of the circuit.
Antonio Fuoco crossed the line in fifth place as the highest placed Prema driver while Nyck de Vries pipped Charles Leclerc to sixth across the line by only three tenths of a second
The Prema pair of Fuoco and Leclerc both suffered from very high tyre wear throught Sunday's sprint race which forced them to pit onto the soft compound tyre at half race distance. Wear rates remained high however, and Leclerc fell through the field in the closing laps having used all of his tyre life to close back up to the points paying positions.
With his tyres exceeding their lifespan, Palou rounded out the points paying positions in eighth place.
The only two retirements of the sprint race were Jordan King, who suffered an engine failure whilst running in second place early on, and Ralph Boschung, who completed a difficult weekend by breaking down on the final lap for Campos Racing.
The final race of the penultimate round of the 2017 Formula 2 season was instrumental in shaping up a late season battle in the Team Standings, with the fight for victory rolling over to the final round of the season at Abu Dhabi.
With two races remaining, Prema Racing currently leads DAMS with 347 points to 345 while Russian Time still remain in contention with 341 points in third.
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