Monza F2: Ghiotto fights back to claim sprint win

Ghiotto, who won yesterday’s feature race on the road before being demoted to fourth with a post-race penalty, charged up from fifth on the grid with a series of determined passes to seal his second GP2/F2 victory.

Championship leader Charles Leclerc fought his way to ninth after being involved in a late-race crash in the feature event, but could not score a point, while his title rival Oliver Rowland made his way up to 11th from 19th on the grid.

At the start, Sean Gelael made a lightning getaway to rise from fourth to lead into Turn 1 ahead of Louis Deletraz, as polesitter Gustav Malja made slow progress off the line.

Gelael led the early laps before he was overhauled by Deletraz on the run to Turn 1 at the start of lap four of 21.

Ghiotto began his charge by demoting Malja to fifth and then made his way into the top three as Sette Camara and Gelael fought over second on the exit of the Roggia chicane.

In a thrilling exchange, Sette Camara got ahead of Gelael on the approach to Lesmo one, where Ghiotto forcefully got by the Indonesian driver too, and Nicholas Latifi did likewise at the second Lesmo.

Ghiotto then took second when Sette Camara went wide at the Roggia and set about catching Deletraz.

He did so at the start of lap 11, pressuring the Rapax driver at Turn 1 before getting into first with a better run out of the Roggia.

From there, Ghiotto edged clear into the lead and eventually took the chequered flag with a margin of 2.2s over Sette Camara, who demoted Deletraz to third with a DRS-assisted move into Turn 1 on lap 12.

Fuoco, who inherited the race one win, made steady progress up the order from eighth on the grid and eventually caught and passed Deletraz for third place with a textbook move into Turn 1.

Deletraz held onto fourth ahead of his teammate Roberto Merhi and Gelael, as Nobuharu Matsushita and Alex Albon eventually claimed the final two points-paying places after a seemingly never-ending mid-pack scrap.

Leclerc was in the thick of the action after shooting up from 17th early on and he fought the ART Grand Prix cars hard as they came through the pack.

But the championship leader sustained damage challenging Latifi – who tumbled down the order after running high up early on – and he could not finish off his charge to the points, eventually coming home ninth.

Rowland also made good progress early on, attacking Leclerc at the Lesmos before dropping back, but could only rise as far as 11th, one spot ahead of Nyck de Vries.

Artem Markelov ended up 15th, just ahead of Latifi, following a late-race clash with Jordan King that sent the Briton across the gravel between the Lesmos.

Sprint race results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	33'15.078
2	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	2.296
3	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	4.505
4	Louis Deletraz	Rapax	6.246
5	Roberto Merhi	Rapax	11.803
6	Sean Gelael	Arden International	17.305
7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	20.010
8	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	20.588
9	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	23.263
10	Norman Nato	Arden International	23.704
11	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	27.419
12	Nyck de Vries	Racing Engineering	29.307
13	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	29.659
14	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	29.906
15	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	32.045
16	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	32.965
17	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	33.237
18	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	57.447
19	Robert Visoiu	Campos Racing	1'00.129
20	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	1'06.302