Lando Norris battled through the field to take his first victory since the second round of the championship. Making up for a disappointing opening race at the Norisring, the win puts him back in the championship battle.
Norris started fourth on the grid and, though he managed to get away from the line without losing positions, he soon fell back behind Van Amersfoort’s Pedro Piquet. The pair enjoyed a strong fight, and Norris was able to get back ahead of the Brazilian, albeit with some contact.
Back in fourth, he quickly caught up with Maximilian Gunther and Jake Hughes, who were battling for second. With two clean moves, he quickly moved up to second, more than a second behind Ralf Aron.
Aron had enjoyed a trouble free race up until this point. With Hughes having to defend against Gunther, Aron had managed to build up a gap to the rest of the field. When Norris broke through to second, Aron was about a second and a half ahead. Less than 10 laps later, Norris had closed the gap to just 0.2s.
Aron tried to defend but was unable to keep Norris behind him for long.
Having lost the race lead, Aron struggled to remain in control. Hughes found a way past, knocking Aron into third where he was forced to defend from Gunther. Running deep into the hairpin, Aron lost two more positions and with a broken nose he crossed the line fifth.
Hughes took second, more than a second behind Norris but with a comfortable gap to Gunther and Daruvala in third and fourth.
Piquet ran out of laps before he could take advantage of Aron’s problems, and crossed the line sixth, just ahead of team-mate Harrison Newey. Guanyu Zhou took eighth, ahead of championship contenders Callum Ilott and Joel Eriksson.
Ilott’s poor finish worked to Norris’ advantage. The Carlin driver moved up to third in the championship standings, behind Eriksson and Gunther. Gunther’s third place extended his lead at the top, now more than 20 points ahead of Eriksson.
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