Schumacher passes Tsunoda and claims victory in the Distinguished Race

Tsunoda has a clean start in first place to lead the field to Turn 2 – the first braking area on the track – while Schumacher cleared Karlin II of Jehan Darovala to put himself in second place.

On lap 5, Schumacher quickly closed in Tsunoda with purple times in sectors 1 and 2, but the Japanese driver managed to block him more quickly in the latter part of the lap.

Tsunoda then set out to set a series of the fastest laps to build a two-second lead up front, which he maintained when the two drivers stopped together on lap 8 of the intermediate tires.

In the next 12 laps, Tsunoda appeared to dominate the race, and the Carlin driver maintained his edge over Schumacher without any problems, as the duo spread away from their rivals.

However, Tsunoda then got stuck behind poor tire-wielding Artem Markelov, who had not yet stopped, allowing Schumacher to return to play.

After raising the deficit to less than half a second, Schumacher wasted no time passing the Tsunoda, selling a doll as they approached the second turn of the next lap. Tsunoda ran deep into the corner while trying to protect the inner line, allowing Schumacher to cut the path and pounce on him for the lead.

Virtuosi Callum Ilott, who jumped from Jehan Daruvala by trailing two terms behind a Carlin driver, also managed to overtake Tsunoda on the same lap, putting his rivals in first and second place.

But Ellott couldn’t do much about the pace of Schumacher, who enjoyed a quiet race from there and clinched a comfortable six-second win.

Ilott eventually fell into the clutches of Tsunoda, who made an impressive move around the outside of the Virtuosi driver at the long left turn 3 to grab second place.

The British driver was fortunate to hold the last place on the podium at the end, clearing the finish line by 0.025 seconds behind Hitech of Luca Ghiotto.

Daruvala finally finished fifth after starting from the front row, recording his second best result in his F2 rookie campaign.

The Campos of Jack Aitken enjoyed a long fight with Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou, with the two drivers running for a long time in the first run on medium tires.

Zhou made several attempts to pass Aitken, but the Campos driver put up a tough defense to maintain his position, finishing sixth.

Zhou slid down to eighth in the final standings, after losing a Hiteck position from Nikita Mazepin while trying to pass Aitken to turn 2 on lap 16.

Marcus Armstrong was the leading ART driver in ninth place, while Dan Ticketom completed scoring for DAMS.

Robert Schwartzman, who finished fourth in the championship heading for his home role in Russia, finished 11th after losing time with a slow change of right rear tire as Prima tried to double the stack of their drivers.

Red Bull Gauri Phipps (DAMS) and championship competitor Christian Lundgard (ART) retired on the opening lap in a multi-car collision that also included Charoz Pedro Pique.

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