Ilott inherits F2 Feature Race victory after Zhou and Schumacher hit trouble

Callum Ilott kickstarted his FIA Formula 2 Championship with victory in Saturday’s Feature Race in Austria ahead of series debutants Marcus Armstrong and Robert Shwartzman.

The Brit had a sensational battle with his UNI-Virtuosi team-mate Guanyu Zhou and PREMA’s Mick Schumacher throughout the majority of the race. Ilott jumped into the lead for a few corners at the start before Zhou went side-by-side with him to retake the lead at Turn 7.

The top ten at the end of Lap 6 was Zhou, Ilott, Schumacher, Felipe Drugovich, Shwartzman, Christian Lundgaard, Dan Ticktum, Nikita Mazepin, Louis Deletraz and Armstrong.

Two laps and Shwartzman moved ahead of Drugovich into fourth place on the inside into Turn 3, a lap after his former F3 team-mate Armstrong pitted for the hard compound tyres.

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Shwartzman would stay out for another five laps before the Russian pitted, thus re-joining behind the New Zealander.

Lap 17 and Zhou pitted for new tyres, handing the lead to Ilott with Schumacher close behind and looking strong to snatch the lead from both Virtuosi pilots.

Ilott would pit only a lap later and completed the over-cut on his Chinese team-mate. Schumacher inherited the lead before he came in on the next tour and came back out ahead of both drivers.

However, on the cold tyres, the German was not able to fend them off and dropped to third whilst getting heat into his hard tyres. A turning point in the race occurred on Lap 26 when Zhou slowed with mechanical issues, dropping him to the back of the field.

Meanwhile, Artem Markelov pulled to the side of the track in his HWA Racelab, bringing out the Safety Car for a couple of laps.

The race was on underway again but Schumacher threw chances of victory away from second place when he ran off the track at Turn 7 before re-joining in 13th.

That allowed Armstrong and Shwartzman into second and third, as Ilott pulled out a gap as long as eight seconds to win the first F2 race of the season and bagged the extra points for fastest lap inside the top ten.

Lundgaard came home fourth in the second ART ahead of Dan Ticktum for DAMS. Giuliano Alesi crossed the line 6th after making the alternate strategy work in front of Louis Deletraz. Felipe Drugovich was eighth on his debut for MP Motorsport following qualifying on the front row but will be starting there again in the Sprint Race on reverse-grid pole.

Team-mate Nobuharu Matsushita was 9th and Roy Nissany for Trident in 10th and taking the final point. Schumacher was a disappointing 11th, with Zhou a lowly 17th.

The Sprint Race tomorrow morning gets underway at 10:10 BST.