Ghiotto led the majority of Saturday’s feature race on a brave strategy by the UNI-Virtuosi team, but unfortunately the super soft tyre degraded quicker than expected and he had to settle for fourth.
A storming driver through the field was equally matched by a stunning display of defensive driving where Ghiotto held off new F2 champion Nyck de Vries, meaning UNI-Virtuosi is within striking distance of the F2 teams' championship heading to the finale in Abu Dhabi in November.
Zhou received a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage after he ran wide in the first race, but recovered to take 10th and then a brilliant fifth in Sunday’s sprint race.
Ghiotto extended his cushion in third in the championship – which awards enough license points to race in Formula 1 – and can still take second at the last round, while Zhou remains the top rookie in the championship in seventh and can also move forward.
UNI-Virtuosi Racing is glad that Nobuharu Matsushita and Nikita Mazepin appear uninjured after their crash at the start of Sundays sprint race, and extends it’s well wishes to Juan Manuel Correa, a fellow competitor undergoing surgery on his legs today after a crash at Spa earlier this month.
Luca Ghiotto:
Probably one of the toughest races [Sunday’s sprint race] that I've ever had. I think that even when I've had to try and recover from last it hasn't been this tough. In those moments I enjoy the race but today was just about praying for it to end. Abu Dhabi will be key. Winning the championship is of course the best thing overall, but to finish second is for sure better than third. I will try my best to do that in Abu Dhabi.
Guan Yu Zhou:
It's my first time here and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. The race wasn’t ideal as we were held back by the penalty, especially as we could have gone for the reversed-grid pole, and in race two I did some improvements in my driving after going deep into the data to fix that, and we were one of the fastest cars on track.
