As is tradition in Bahrain, the combination of a track where overtaking is pretty straightforward and seriously high tyre wear made for an epic Formula 2 race.
The first start was aborted after Roberto Merhi and Artem Markelov stalled on the grid. Merhi was out whilst Markelov had to start from the pit lane. At the front, Lando Norris made a blistering start from pole and cruised off to victory, but behind him all hell broke loose. There’s no point in describing who the main battles were between because to be honest, it was pretty much everyone.
Despite the number of close fights and overtaking moves it was a clean race (which isn’t always the case in F2) and in the closing laps, all eyes were on whether Markelov could go from the pit lane to the podium. He made it up to third but had a chance to take second from Sergio Sette Camara, resulting in this epic scrap.
Camara retained second with Markelov a still-impressive third. Mercedes junior George Russell finished fifth, McLaren junior Nyck De Vries, with Renault junior Jack Aitken ninth – frustratingly just one place off of getting reverse grid pole for the sprint race.
