Mercedes Formula 1 junior George Russell recovered from 12th on the grid to claim his first Formula 2 victory in the Azerbaijan sprint race.
Having vaulted from 12th on the grid to fifth at the start, Russell climbed to second by lap 10 of 21. Carlin’s Sergio Sette Camara, who also gained places at the start, had built a four-second lead in first.
Russell proceeded to reduce the gap and passed Camara into Turn 1 with four laps remaining. Camara, who completed the final handful of laps with a flat-spotted left-front tyre, was unable to respond to Russell’s pace and finished second.
Russell had previously led the majority of Saturday’s feature race, before tangling with Prema Racing’s Nyck de Vries at Turn 1 during a safety car restart. Classified 12th in the feature race, Russell started Sunday’s sprint from the same position.
De Vries, who retired in the closing laps of the feature race and started the sprint in 14th, finished third. Like Russell, he made up several places at the start, ending lap one in sixth.
After making further progress, he caught third-placed Nicholas Latifi in the closing laps. On the penultimate lap, de Vries passed the DAMS driver with the use of DRS entering Turn 3.
Latifi finished fourth ahead of Lando Norris. The two battled in the early stages. On lap nine, Latifi, Norris and Russell entered Turn 1 three-wide while fighting for second place and Norris, who was on the outside line entering the corner, ran out of grip and took to the escape road.
He returned to the track in seventh and recovered to an eventual fifth place finish ahead of Trident’s Arjun Maini, who started 17th after retiring from Saturday’s feature race.
Santino Ferrucci managed to pass the MP Motorsport duo of Roberto Merhi and Ralph Boschung in the closing laps to finish seventh. Merhi and Boschung both lost ground after starting on the front-row. The pair battled throughout much of the second half of the race, finishing eighth and ninth respectively.
Russian Time’s Tadasuke Makino rounded out the top 10. His team-mate Artem Markelov was one of five drivers to stall at the start, along with feature race winner Alexander Albon, Jack Aitken, Maximilian Gunther, and Luca Ghiotto.
Markelov later retired with his second engine issue of the weekend. The other stallers all finished a lap down.
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