Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Prema Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Mercedes junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli backed up his success in the Formula 2 Silverstone sprint race with his maiden feature races success in Hungary in a race broken by a pair of safety car interventions.
Starting in seventh as the highest-placed driver on hard tyres, Antonelli progressed to fifth in the opening exchanges but was promoted to the lead when the safety car was deployed for the first time on lap seven when polesitter Paul Aron (Hitech) collided with title rival Zane Maloney (Rodin).
Despite pulling a six-second lead, Antonelli needed a further interruption to give him any hope of taking the victory, a prayer that was answered on lap 22 when Amaury Cordeel (Hitech) crashed heavily at Turn 4.
Able to pit for soft rubber and return to the track in fifth, the Prema driver made immediate progress, passing Dennis Hauger (MP Motorsport) and Enzo Fittipaldi (Van Amersfoort Racing) in a single lap, before completing his run to the front just two laps later.
With Aron starting on pole position, he had entered the race as the favourite to pick up his first win of the season and close the gap to Isack Hadjar (Campos), who was expected to start in third.
This expectation grew as the cars lined up on the grid, with Campos bizarrely failing to get Hadjar out of the pitlane before the red light showed to close the exit, meaning he would have to start from the pits.
But after this moment of hope for Aron, the Estonian’s day quickly took a nosedive as a poor start saw him drop to seventh by the exit of Turn 1.
Things then got worse on lap seven, when he misjudged the pace of hard-shod Maloney at Turn 2 and made contact with the rear of the Rodin, sending himself into a spin and causing both cars to retire.
In the meantime, Hadjar had been making progress and benefitted from a cheap stop under the safety car to switch onto hard tyres. But this was undone by the second intervention, which saw him swamped by those who had enjoyed an equally cheap stop for softs late on, meaning he finished 18th.
Victor Martins (ART) was second after a flying start from fifth to the lead by the first corner, with Richard Verschoor (Trident) third after following the same strategy as Antonelli and displacing Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta) for the final podium position on the final lap.
As a result of the problems of those at the top of the table, Antonelli climbed from ninth to sixth in the drivers’ standings and 55 points off the top spot.
Hadjar remains at the top of the standings, with his 18-point lead over Aron unchanged. Bortoleto past Maloney climbs to third, 30 points back.
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+12.500
12.5
+13.300
13.3
+14.800
14.8
+18.500
18.5
+19.100
19.1
+20.200
20.2
+20.400
20.4
+21.100
21.1
+23.300
23.3
+24.800
24.8
+26.700
26.7
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28.4
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31.1
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31.5
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31.8
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32.8
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33.7
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34.6
15 laps
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Source: Autosport