Styria – Race 1: Robert Shwartzman holds off Yuki Tsunoda

Just like the F1 qualifying session, the weather played spoilsport in Styria for the F2 race. It was significantly delayed by the heavy downpour at the Red Bull Ring. As a result, the drivers were able to hit the track almost two hours behind the official schedule. After four laps behind the safety car, the beasts were finally unleashed on the track.

The beginning of the race was particularly cautious, whereas the young wolves have accustomed us to completely unrestrained races. However, even though the track was drying out lap after lap, some sections of the track remained particularly soaked, which encouraged caution.

Finally, the decisive moment was the pit stop for the mandatory stop in the long race. Guanyu Zhou and Robert Shwartzman decided to follow each other by making their stop on the 21st lap, but Yuki Tsunoda, still leading since the start of the race, did not seem inclined to imitate them. However, his Carlin team was calling him to make his stop. After two laps with the same issue, the British team finally realized that the Japanese driver simply couldn’t hear them due to a problem with his radio. So it was the good old pit board that was used to inform the driver that he needed to pit. This was done on the 26th lap, nearly five laps after his main rivals.

Guanyu Zhou didn’t expect as much and therefore inherited first place. The Chinese driver, who had been promised victory last week before being hit by a reliability issue, hoped to unlock his win tally in the category. However, it was not to be due to a strong-performing Robert Shwartzman who managed his tires skillfully. The Prema driver was thus able to overtake both Uni-Virtuosi drivers, Callum Ilott, and then Guanyu Zhou, to take the lead.

But behind, Yuki Tsunoda was determined not to give up so quickly and put together a series of fast laps to climb from fifth place towards the front. But unfortunately for him, he didn’t have enough laps left and fell just one second short of victory. Robert Shwartzman commented on those last tense laps: « We came out just behind Zhou and he was very fast but then he started to lose grip and we had a great battle. I overtook him and took the provisional lead but my engineer informed me that Yuki was very fast and I couldn’t relax. I saw him coming back and the last five laps were very intense because I started to lose grip at the rear. Fortunately, Yuki struggled a bit too, which saved me. »

Conversely, Guanyu Zhou, with very worn-out tires, had all the trouble in the world to resist the comeback of Mick Schumacher, who managed a strong recovery after missed qualifications. But the Chinese driver still managed to secure his place on the podium.

For Robert Shwartzman, this first victory in F2 also allows him to take the lead in the championship as Marcus Armstrong had to settle for seventh place, behind his teammate Christian Lundgaard.

On the French side, there was no miracle for Giuliano Alesi, stuck in 21st place from start to finish of the race.