Silverstone F3.5: Fittipaldi sweeps opener with Race 2 win
Pietro Fittipaldi completed a clean sweep of the opening Formula V8 3.5 weekend at Silverstone, taking an assured victory in the second race to add to Saturday’s season-opening triumph.
Pietro Fittipaldi, Lotus
Diederik van der Laan / Dutch Photo Agency
Fittipaldi again started from pole and immediately set about building a cushion over Roy Nissany, who occupied second after Rene Binder got off to a poor start.
By the end of lap one, Fittipaldi was a massive 3.1 seconds ahead of Nissany and continued to pull away from the RP Motorsport driver.
Fittipaldi maintained his lead after the mandatory pitstop phase, although this time was ahead of Egor Orudzhev after the Russian had jumped Nissany in the pits as the RP crew performed a slow stop.
Shortly after, the race was neutralised after a safety car was brought out for a collision between AVF’s Matevos Isaakyan and Teo Martin’s Nelson Mason at Brooklands.
Mason had attempted to pass Isaakyan around the outside in a carbon copy of his move on Binder a few laps prior, but Isaakyan clipped the Canadian and the two were out on the spot.
Once the safety car had gone in, Fittipaldi made a good restart to break away from Orudzhev, keeping the gap steady at around two seconds.
The victory was put beyond doubt as Orudzhev locked up on the penultimate lap, losing a further second to Fittipaldi.
Nissany followed Fittipaldi and Orudzhev home to claim the final podium spot, ahead of former teammate Binder.
Konstantin Tereshchenko finished fifth as top rookie, having been kept busy with a number of on-track battles, beating the Fortec pair of Alfonso Celis Jr and Diego Menchaca to the line.
Celis spent the time after the safety car hunting down Menchaca, eventually powering past his teammate at Maggotts.
The Fortecs beat both Barone Rampante cars, who were the last classified finishers in eighth and ninth.
Fittipaldi leads the championship after the two races with 50 points, ahead of Celis with 26 points and Binder with 24 points.
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