Barcelona F2: Leclerc fends off Ghiotto to win again

Leclerc beat Luca Ghiotto and Oliver Rowland to extend his championship points lead for Prema Racing.

At the start, Leclerc defended hard against the Russian Time car of Ghiotto but held the lead on the run down to the first corner.

Ghiotto dived down the inside of Leclerc at Turn 4, briefly gaining the lead before locking up and sliding wide, which allowed the Monegasque driver to reclaim first place.

Leclerc then built up a slender 0.9-second advantage over Ghiotto, who lost second to Alexander Albon when the Thai racer dived up the inside at Turn 1 at the start of the fourth lap.

The battle at the front settled down as Leclerc continued to extend his advantage, which was up to 2.1s when he came into switch to the hard tyres at the end of the seventh tour of the 37-lap race.

Ghiotto followed him in two laps later, which left Albon, DAMS’ Oliver Rowland and Rapax driver Nyck de Vries at the front on lap nine.

It's then that Sergio Canamasas triggered the virtual safety car when his Trident GP2/11 car stopped on track at the approach to Turn 7. The VSC soon became a full-on safety car as the marshals who attended the stranded Trident driver needed to tow him to safety.

The field had bunched up when the race resumed on lap 14, where Albon and Rowland – who were both yet to stop after starting on the hard rubber – leapt clear.

Leclerc was fighting down in 12th place but began quickly cutting through the field – starting with a sweeping move on Campos driver Ralph Boschung at Turn 1 on lap 17.

Back at the front, Rowland pressured Albon before moving into the lead on lap 21 after getting a better run out of Turn 5.

Rowland quickly established a gap over Albon but was only 13.5s clear of Leclerc – now up to fifth – by the time he finally came into take the soft tyres on lap 28, which dropped him to seventh.

As the final hard-shod runners came into make their stops, Leclerc eased back into the lead and went on to win by 3.7s over Ghiotto – who had shadowed the championship leader while they battled back through the pack after the safety car.

Rowland – who at times was two seconds a lap faster than Leclerc on his new tyres – charged back to third but was a distant 11.1s behind at the flag.

Nobuharu Matsushita finished fourth after mirroring Leclerc and Ghiotto’s tyre strategies but was passed by Rowland late on.

Albon came home fifth ahead of Nicholas Latifi, Gustav Malja, Artem Markelov and Jordan King, as Boschung rounded out the top ten.

Former F1 driver Roberto Merhi was the only driver besides Canamasas to fail to finish when he stopped in the pits late on.

The Spaniard had earlier picked up a puncture from Prema’s Antonio Fuoco – who also made contact with Markelov and eventually finished in P14.

Alex Kalinauckas / Autosport

Race results

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	1	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	37	-
2	5	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	37	3.7
3	9	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	37	11.1
4	7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	37	14.1
5	8	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	37	17.3
6	10	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	37	23.8
7	4	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	37	24.7
8	6	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	37	25.4
9	15	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	37	30.9
10	11	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	37	38.2
11	18	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	37	43.8
12	3	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	37	50.2
13	14	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	37	55.9
14	2	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	37	65.9
15	19	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	37	67.7
16	21	Sean Gelael	Arden International	37	68.3
17	20	Norman Nato	Arden International	37	69.2
18	16	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	37	89.5
Ret	12	Roberto Merhi	Campos Racing	33	4 laps
Ret	17	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	8	29 laps