Ferrari protégé Charles Leclerc claimed his third Formula 2 victory of the season with a controlled performance in the Feature Race in Baku.
Leclerc dominated proceedings from pole position and maintained his cool in a disrupted race, which was eventually red-flagged when the circuit was blocked at Turn 8.
Leclerc dedicated his victory to his father, Hervé, who passed away on Tuesday.
Leclerc, running an Option/Prime strategy, maintained the lead at the start, while Nicholas Latifi moved ahead of the slow-starting Nobuharu Matsushita.
Nyck de Vries passed Latifi after the first Safety Car period, caused by Johnny Cecotto Jr. crashing at Turn 2, while the race was neutralised again when Louis Delétraz went off.
By this stage, the front runners had made their mandatory stops, leaving Luca Ghiotto, running an alternative Prime/Option strategy in the lead, enabling de Vries to close on Leclerc.
Leclerc was unable to get by Ghiotto but the Italian soon pitted, after which the Prema racer surged clear of his McLaren-backed rival.
The race came to a premature end when Sean Gelael, running on the fringes of the top 10, carried too much speed into Turn 8 and crashed.
Gelael’s car blocked the circuit, leaving the pursuing Sergey Sirotkin with nowhere to go as he too hit the wall, with Gustav Malja and Matsushita, who had plummeted down the order after a mistake at Turn 1, also delayed.
Officials firstly deployed the Safety Car but quickly red-flagged proceedings, and with only a few minutes remaining on the clock, opted against a restart, bringing the race to a premature end with 26 of the 29 laps completed.
Leclerc’s victory was thus assured, with de Vries and Latifi completing the podium places.
Oliver Rowland recovered from a so-so first lap and initial struggles to take fourth place, in front of Artem Markelov, Norman Nato and Jordan King.
Ralph Boschung ran a Prime/Option strategy to take eighth, benefiting from the late chaos, while Sergio Canamasas took ninth with Sirotkin classified 10th on countback.
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