The German won the Feature Race at Sochi, extending his championship lead. Callum Ilott was third and Marcus Amrstrong was also in the points.
Mick Schumacher is on a roll. The 21 year old Ferrari Driver Academy (FDA) student took his second win of the season, having started from third, clearly enjoying the Sochi track. Mick got a perfect start to immediately move up to second behind Yuki Tsunoda. The Prema Racing driver then stuck behind the Japanese driver’s Carlin for a long time before getting past on lap 19. He had closed right up at the final corner and then got the slipstream before making the pass at Turn 2. Tsunoda fought back but Mick accelerated away to lead.
Perfect race management. Once in the lead, Schumacher comfortably managed the situation over the remaining 13 laps to take the win. “I am very, very happy,” commented Schumacher. “We are reaping the rewards of the work we’ve been doing for a while now and I’m glad to pay back the team with this result. The car was perfect and I would have even settled for second, so you can imagine how pleased I am to win.”
Championship. Mick now has 186 points and has extended his lead over second placed Callum Ilott to 18 points. The Englishman also had a strong race, managing to get on the podium, just taking third place by 25 thousandths ahead of Luca Ghiotto who was charging up the order on a different strategy to the majority of drivers.
Callum. Ilott started fourth, overtook Tsunoda on lap 20 and tried to get on terms with Schumacher in the lead. “When I managed to take second, I pushed to get as close as possible to Mick,” explained Callum. “But that compromised my rear tyres so that over the final two laps I had a drastic performance drop. I couldn’t hold off Tsunoda, but luckily I was able to fend off Ghiotto’s final attack.”
Robert. The Russian started seventh and lost three places immediately, but then made up ground just before the tyre stop. During his pit stop, a problem with the right rear wheel cost him seven seconds, but back on track, he managed to move up to sixth. However, tyre degradation affected the Russian’s performance, dropping him down to eleventh.
Marcus happy. Giuliano Alesi also finished out of the points in 14th place, but Marcus Armstrong made it to the top ten, continuing the better form he showed at the previous round in Mugello. The New Zealander was ninth in today’s race, just a second short of eighth place, which would have ensured him a pole position start for tomorrow’s Sprint Race. On Sunday, Ilott starts sixth, while Schumacher lines up from the eighth spot on the grid. The race begins at 10.55 local (9.55 CET).