| It was very sunny again today at Jerez for the 39-lap Feature Race of the tenth and penultimate round of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship. Following yesterday’s Qualifying the Racing Engineering drivers, Nyck De Vries and Gustav Malja, lined up 8th and 16th on the grid, Nyck started on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres P and Gustav was on the P Zero White medium compound tyres.
Nyck gained a position at the start as he passed Markelov and he finished the opening lap in 7th, 0.8 behind Matsushita and 0.6 ahead of Nato. Over the next few laps the positions remained constant as, even with DRS, it was hard to find an overtaking opportunity and by lap five the young Dutchman was one second behind Matsushita and he had opened out a two second gap to Nato. Nyck took his mandatory pitstop on lap nine switching to the P Zero White medium compound tyres and he resumed the track in 15th position but he lost a position to Nato who had stopped a lap earlier and had his tyres up to working temperature.
By lap fourteen Nyck was 14th but there were still a number of cars ahead of him who had yet to stop and he was closing in on Matsushita and by lap nineteen, nearing the halfway point, the Racing Engineering driver was less than a second behind the Japanese driver. On lap twenty-three Nyck was up to 9th and two laps later it became 8th as all the pitstops were completed and he was holding the gap to Matsushita at just under one second. With twelve laps to go a close battle was developing between Nato, Matsushita, Nyck and Latifi and on lap twenty-nine Latifi, who was on soft tyres, was able to pass Nyck demoting him to 9th and then Markelov also got ahead of the Racing Engineering car.
Nyck was now being held up by Matsushita who was struggling with his tyres but he was able to pass the ART car on lap thirty-two and then contact between Ferrucci and Matsushita saw the Safety Car deployed returning to the pits on lap thirty-six and, as the race restarted, Nyck lost a place to Fuoco and he then began to fall back dropping to 13th position at the chequered flag.
Gustav had a good opening lap moving up to 14th as he passed Delétraz and Fuoco and he started lap two 0.9 seconds behind King. The young Swede soon found himself in a similar position to his teammate with no position changes and he was one second behind King and 0.4 ahead of Fuoco. By lap eleven the pitstops by the cars that had started on the soft compound tyres had promoted Gustav to 6th and a lap later it was 4th.
On lap twenty Gustav had fallen to 7th as the cars that had pitstopped and were now on new tyres were able to pass him but he would have an advantage in the closing laps when he switched to the softer tyres and on lap twenty-one he took his pitstop dropping to 19th which became 18th when he passed Delétraz. Gustav soon picked up more places as he passed Binder, Ferrucci, Gelael, Palou and King promoting him to 12th but the Safety Car incident saw him passed by King and Palou on the restart falling to 14th and this was where he finished the race. A disappointing race for Racing Engineering with neither Nyck or Gustav able to get into a point scoring position and their race pace was not what the team had expected. Tomorrow will see both men starting from the bottom half of the grid with a lot of work needed to get into the points on a circuit that does not offer many overtaking opportunities. |
