Richard Verschoor Secures Maiden Formula 2 Victory in Silverstone Sprint 2

Richard Verschoor took his maiden FIA Formula 2 victory in the second sprint race of the day at Silverstone, while Oscar Piastri took over at the top of the Drivers’ standings thanks to a fourth-place finish.

The MP Motorsport driver led from start to finish and survived two safety car periods for his first win and podium in Formula 2, while Marcus Armstrong and Daniel Ticktum completed the podium.

After taking victory in the earlier sprint race earlier in the day, Robert Shwartzman’s reward was to start from tenth for race two, with Verschoor taking pole position.  The former Red Bull Junior Team driver was joined on the front row by DAMS’ Ferrari Driver Academy member Armstrong.

After his podium earlier in the day, Christian Lundgaard’s second sprint race started in the worst possible way as the ART Grand Prix driver stalled on the dummy grid and was pushed back into the pit lane by the marshals leaving his eighth-place spot on the grid vacant.

It was a good start by Verschoor, who comfortably held onto the lead at turn one ahead of Armstrong and Ticktum, while a fast-starting Piastri attacked Liam Lawson for fourth but to no avail. 

However, a safety car was quicky needed as Ralph Boschung as spun across the circuit after running over the kerb after taking avoiding action as his team-mate Matteo Nannini moved across the circuit and was collected by the helpless Alessio Deledda at turn five. 

Guanyu Zhou was lucky to get through the incident unscathed, but there was a lot of damage to both Boschung’s Campos Racing car and to Deledda’s HWA Racelab car, with debris strewn across the  

The debris was quickly cleared up by the excellent marshals at Silverstone, and the track quickly returned to green flag conditions, with Verschoor taking a good lead at the restart.  Piastri, who was attacking Lawson at the start was forced to defend this time from Jüri Vips but was able to hold onto fifth place.

There was another safety car needed as Red Bull Junior Jehan Daruvala got loose as he ran side by side with Bent Viscaal heading into Stowe, with the Carlin driver clipping the rear wheel of the Trident driver.  Viscaal was forced to retire immediately in the gravel trap while Daruvala headed to the pits for repairs to his front wing.  The stewards subsequently handed the Indian race a ten-second time penalty for causing a collision.

Verschoor was again able to hold on to the lead on the second restart, with Ticktum getting close to Armstrong heading into turn three.  However, the Briton was unable to get ahead, and the leading drivers continued as they had been since the opening lap.

Piastri had to bide his time to make a move for fourth place ahead of Lawson, with the Prema Racing driver getting through into Brooklands with four laps remaining.  The top three, however, were well clear of the Australian for him to do any better.

Verschoor took the chequered flag at the end of the twenty-one laps ahead of Armstrong, who had Ticktum behind him throughout the race.  However, the British racer was unable to find a way ahead of the Kiwi and was forced to settle for the bottom step of the podium.

Once clear of Lawson, Piastri set a number of fastest laps but was unable to better fourth, while Lawson ended fifth ahead of his Hitech Grand Prix team-mate Vips. 

After making a mistake a few laps from the end at turn one, Vips was left to defend from a chain of cars in the final moments of the race, but the Estonian was able to withstand the pressure from UNI-Virtuosi’s Felipe Drugovich to finish sixth ahead of the Brazilian.  David Beckmann completed the points scorers for the Charouz Racing System team.

Shwartzman was running ninth when, inexplicably, he spun his Prema car on the penultimate lap and dropped down the order to fifteenth, promoting MP Motorsport’s Lirem Zendeli to ninth and ART Grand Prix’s Théo Pourchaire to tenth.  Pourchaire will be particularly disappointed with his result having started sixth following his great drive to fifth in the first race.

Zhou from the back of the grid could only manage to finish eleventh ahead of DAMS’ Roy Nissany and the recovering Lundgaard.  It means the Chinese driver falls further behind Prema’s Piastri, who now takes over from team-mate Shwartzman at the head of the standings and with pole position in the bag for Sunday’s feature race.

Silverstone Sprint Race 2 Result