Antonio Giovinazzi wins in Belgium
A great weekend for Prema: after Pierre Gasly's victory yesterday, Antonio Giovinazzi also managed to claim his third victory of the year, winning the Sprint race. Gustav Malja and Luca Ghiotto join him on the podium.
Antonio Giovinazzi had not been able to take advantage of his pole position in the first race and missed his start. This time, he started third on the grid and did not miss his take-off. This allowed him to immediately overtake his compatriot Luca Ghiotto and position himself right behind Gustav Malja, who was leading just like the day before.
Nevertheless, the Swede could not resist the Prema driver for very long and had to yield at the end of the Kemmel straight. The Italian was then never troubled again by the rest of the pack.
But behind, Pierre Gasly wasn’t planning to be outdone and wanted to increase his points total. Starting eighth due to the reverse grid, he almost lost everything at the Les Combes chicane when he damaged his front wing trying to overtake Oliver Rowland. Fortunately for the Red Bull driver, his car could stay on track and continue the race. He finally managed to get past Oliver Rowland at the Eau Rouge Raidillon, before climbing up to fourth place, behind Gustav Malja and Luca Ghiotto.
If Raffaele Marciello, Alex Lynn, and Jordan King finished behind the Frenchman, the last corner was very eventful: while the eighth place was occupied by Artem Markelov struggling with his tires (to the point of telling his engineer to shut up…), he was hit by his compatriot Sergey Sirotkin, who was trying to overtake Oliver Rowland. The ART Grand Prix driver gracefully acknowledged his mistake. This could earn him a penalty on the Monza grid, which could have a significant impact on the outcome of the championship.
With this victory, the two Prema drivers occupy the top two spots in the championship, promising a very intense home weekend next week at Monza Park.
From our special correspondent at Spa-Francorchamps
