Enzo Fittipaldi earned an emotional first Feature Race win in F2 after a stunning double-overtake late on to cruise to victory in clean air with 7.8 seconds to spare, paying tribute to his uncle Wilson Fittipaldi who recently passed.
Kush Maini got off to a quick start from pole before losing position after the first round of pit stops, falling to the midfield until he fought his way back to second place with a brilliant recovery drive.
The Norweigan driver Dennis Hauger fought hard for third place, battling the Mercedes junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli and overtaking two cars on the final lap to land the position.
Maini inherited the pole position from Oliver Bearman who is standing in this Formula 1 weekend for Carlos Sainz in Ferrari with the Spaniard out recovering from appendicitis surgery.
Ritomo Miyata received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for an unsafe release from the pitlane before the formation lap as Taylor Barnard was pushed to the pitlane after failing to leave his grid slot.
After losing his Bahrain pole position for a technical infringement, Maini got a perfect launch off the line from pole position as chaos unfolded behind him on the first lap.
The Mercedes junior Kimi Antonelli and Van Amersfoort Racing driver Fittipaldi gained a position each in the first lap while the second Invicta of Gabriel Bortoleto retired from a technical issue after a slow start.
An unlucky weekend for Roman Stanek, the Trident driver was quickly caught as Pepe Marti spun through the exit of Turn 2 causing both cars to retire and bring out a Safety Car.
On Lap 4, the Safety Car returned to the pits as Maini maintained his lead as the super soft tyres that the majority of the grid started on began to degrade under a cooling temperature during the Safety Car.
DRS was enabled on Lap 5, with Jak Crawford a second away from Maini in the lead as the top four began to split away from the rest of the pack.
Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar engaged in a battle for fourth position, overtaking Victor Martins on Lap 7 while the race-leader, mentored by two-time F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen, took an early pit stop to undercut Crawford following behind in second.
The top three runners entered the pit at the same time, with Crawford falling behind Antonelli with cooler tyre temperatures until he overtook the Mercedes junior at Turn 22 with DRS, who briefly re-took the position until Crawford snatched it back after Antonelli went wide in Turn 1 on Lap 8.
Juan Manuel Correa led the race on Lap 10, going for a later pit stop while the Mercedes junior made his way up to 7th going down towards Turn 1 to snatch the place away from the Red Bull junior Hadjar.
Miyata experienced a delayed pit stop after serving his ten-second penalty, which set him further back in the race while Barnard opted for the hard tyre to take him to the end of the race after starting from the pitlane.
Fittipaldi dived down the inside of Maini for fourth place to search for his first F2 Feature Race on Lap 13, as Crawford followed behind in fifth setting the fastest lap.
Franco Colapinto tapped the wall through the exit of Turn 27 which led him to spin into the wall at Turn 1 on Lap 16, losing power and bringing out a Safety Car.
A handful of drivers pitted during the Safety Car, including Amaury Cordeel and Barnard, but the race leader Correa entered and left the pits without a tyre change hoping to extend his medium tyre life to the last three laps.
Correa made a swift escape from the safety car, as Crawford was shovelled off the road in a fight with Maini for fifth place.
Fittipaldi set the fastest lap in Lap 20 as DRS opened down towards the final corner as Correa fell under pressure from Cordeel who snatched the lead, leaving him within half a second from Fittipaldi tailing behind.
The Brazilian then bravely made a bold move around the outside of Correa and Cordeel, jumping two drivers to steal the lead on Lap 22 and escape the DRS train behind.
The top six drivers fell behind a DRS train led by Cordeel, as a four-car battle ensued on Lap 24 fighting for the second podium step.
A Virtual Safety Car was deployed on Lap 24, as Zak O’Sullivan spun after going wide and stopped in the middle of the track at Turn 2.
Antonelli then ran wide at Turn 2 to avoid a scuffle with Hauger as the race leader pulled away with almost five seconds to spare, while Correa finally pitted for soft tyres with just three laps to go.
Hauger snatched fifth place from Antonelli a lap later, breaking the DRS train behind Crawford as Maini climbed up to second place six seconds behind Fittipaldi searching for his first Feature Race win.
In an excellent last lap, Hauger dived around the outside of Cordeel on the final corner to land himself on the bottom step of the podium by 1 tenth of a second.
Crawford also snatched a place of of Cordeel to take fourth with the Hitech driver demoted from the podium positions to fifth.
A feisty performance from Antonelli was rewarded with a sixth-place finish, while the championship leader Zane Maloney took seventh place after a relatively quiet race.
Richard Verschoor, Rafael Villagomez and Victor Martins completed the top-10.
