2017 Hungaroring Sprint Race

The 2017 Budapest Race 2, otherwise known as the 2017 Hungaroring Sprint Race, was the fourteenth race of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship, staged at the Hungaroring on the 30 July 2017. The race, staged in support of the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix, would see Nobuharu Matsushita sweep to victory after a strong start.

Matsushita's ART Grand Prix teammate Alexander Albon would start the race from pole, but would lose out in a three way fight into the first corner. Matsushita, however, was the star of the opening tour, with Japanese ace sprinting past Norman Nato to claim third, before sweeping inside Albon and Luca Ghiotto to claim the lead through the first corner.

That move also opened the door de Vries to move into third behind Ghiotto, with Charles Leclerc and Oliver Rowland also getting ahead of Albon. Regardless, Matsushita would pull clear at the head of the field, and duly disappeared from the chasing pack as de Vries attacked Ghiotto for second.

Indeed, all the fighting was in the pack behind Matsushita, with the ever increasing temperatures also adding a factor of tyre fatigue into the fights. Nicholas Latifi and Artem Markelov were among those on the move, taking seventh and ninth respectively, although the battles soon came to an end as tyre preservation became key.

Ghiotto would be the biggest victim of tyre wear, the Italian suddenly losing grip in the middle of lap 20 and duly slipped behind de Vries, Rowland and Leclerc in short order. However, his troubles paled in comparison to those of Robert Vișoiu, who first slid into the side of Nabil Jeffri, and then slid off the circuit, prompting a VSC.

Unfortunately the race would barely restart before the VSC was thrown again, this time to clean up after Jeffri hit the back of Sergio Canamasas. Fortunately the second restart was far cleaner, and allowed the drivers to save enough tyre life that they could battle to the end of the race.

There would, however, be no stopping Matsushita out front, who cruised home to claim his second F2 victory. Rowland grabbed second on the penultimate lap from de Vries, who just finished ahead of Leclerc, with Norman Nato and Latifi surviving a late clash to finish fifth and sixth.

Background
The Hungaroring remained unchanged after the Feature Race, meaning there was no need for the Formula Two field to practice ahead of the Sprint. There were, however, changes to the grid after the Feature, with post-race penalties for Sergio Canamasas, Sérgio Sette Câmara and Sean Gelael seeing them relegated down the field. Regardless, it was Alexander Albon would would start the race from pole, with Norman Nato alongside.

Championship-wise Charles Leclerc had seen his lead reduced after Oliver Rowland's victory in the Feature, although the Monegasque ace had moved past the 200 point mark. Indeed, Rowland had cut the lead to 54 points with his second F2 victory, although Leclerc still had more than a weekends worth of points in hand. Artem Markelov, meanwhile, had slipped back behind Rowland in their fight for second, with Nicholas Latifi keeping himself in the hunt to be runner-up.

DAMS had claimed the Teams' Championship lead after their clean-sweep of the points on Saturday, Rowland and Latifi having combined to claim a maximum 49 points in the Feature. That carried the French squad past Prema Racing and onto 257 points, with the Italian team sat on 223 points. Russian Time had continued to chase in third, heading into the second Hungaroring race on 215, with ART Grand Prix a distant fourth.

Entry List
The full entry list for the is displayed below:

Grid
The grid for the second Budapest race was formed from the results of the Feature, with the top eight in the field reversed as per-FIA Formula Two rules:


 * * Canamasas was unable to serve his full grid penalty so would start from the pitlane.

Results
The final classification of the is displayed below:
 * Bold indicates a driver started from pole.
 * Italics indicate that a driver set fastest lap.
 * * Fuoco was still classified despite retiring as he had completed 90% of the race distance. The Italian also set the fastest lap, but was ineligible to score the points as he finished outside of the top ten.

Milestones

 * Nobuharu Matsushita secured his second victory in Formula Two.
 * Also the Japanese ace's fourth GP2/F2 level triumph.
 * ART Grand Prix claimed their second F2 victory.
 * Also ART's 50th win at GP2/F2 level.

Standings
Charles Leclerc continued to lead the way in the Championship, still with a full weekend's worth of points in hand heading into the summer break. Oliver Rowland had, however, closed the gap to 50 points, with 48 available at each of the remaining six races, meaning he could entertain fantasies of beating the Monegasque. In reality, however, the Brit was set to spend the second half of the season fighting for second, with Artem Markelov and Nicholas Latifi also in contention.

DAMS would head into the summer at the head of the Teams' Championship, leaving Hungary with a thirty point advantage over Prema Racing. The Italian squad were still close enough to fight for victory, however, as were Russian Time in third, albeit heading into the second half of the season thirteen off of Prema. Behind ART Grand Prix were a lonely fourth ahead of Rapax, with Trident propping up the table.

Only point scoring drivers and teams are shown.