Victory on melting tyres
the leaders and kept in close formation.
Rowland explained that he had learned from his late-race struggles in Hungary not to stress the tyres after a restart and had a prime view of Leclerc’s problems. “I think Oliver might have been laughing in his helmet because I was all over the place,” said the Monegasque driver.
But in the end, the Ferrari Formula 1 junior held on, edging out Rowland by 0.230s. His team-mate Antonio Fuoco used the same contra-strategy as Latifi – who finished fourth – to leap up the field to third from a lowly 15th grid spot. Artem Markelov was fifth, and Jordan King sensationally finished sixth after making a bold extra stop under the safety car and storming through the field.
“It feels amazing,” Leclerc said of his title win, which he dedicated to his late father, Herve, who passed away in June. “Winning the championship is an amazing way to honour him.”
Prema was hugely proud of its driver’s efforts. “Charles did what we were expecting since the beginning [of the season],” said team boss Rene Rosin. “He is on my top list of drivers – now is the moment to send him onto the big floor, the highest floor of motorsport, and let’s hope he’s able to make it.”
Rowland also praised his rival, despite losing out on the title: “It’s difficult to come in as a rookie, and he had a rookie team-mate as well, so he had to learn everything for himself.
That’s what makes him strong. He’s of a very high level and deserves to be in F1.”
Race two was much more-action packed. Alex Palou, making his F2 debut with Campos Racing, charged off into the lead from reversed-grid pole, while front-row starter Ghiotto and King tangled at the second corner, which dropped the Russian Time driver to the rear of the field.
Then King’s engine spectacularly “went bang” and he dropped out of second, which left Latifi and Markelov chasing Palou. Leclerc, Fuoco and Rowland swapped positions regularly early on – each pulling off thrilling passes as they did so – before the Prema pair dropped back on their qualifying-used rubber and pitted for softs.
Rowland made it a four-way fight for the lead, which was eventually won by the Russian Time machine of Markelov, who nipped by Latifi before dispatching Palou and marching clear to seal his fourth win of 2017 by 11.8s. Rowland pressured the sister DAMS car of Latifi for second but could not get by.
Leclerc and Fuoco charged up the order after their stops – Leclerc got as high as fourth but faded dramatically on the last lap when he “just drove over the [tyre] cliff”, and he eventually crossed the line seventh behind Nyck de Vries, Fuoco and the recovering Ghiotto, and ahead of Palou, who had a major struggle for grip.
“[Starting on qualifying tyres played] quite a big part,” a clearly frustrated Leclerc said after race two. “The plan was win the championship on Saturday. The plan worked but I would have preferred to have a nicer race today. It was a gamble, but we were pretty sure of what we were doing and at the end we are happy and proved that we did well to put everything on Saturday.”
It says a lot about the newly minted champion’s competitive spirit that he could be down the day after sealing a second rookie title win in two years, to follow his GP3 crown. Esteban Ocon, Max Verstappen – even Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton – may need to watch out for that if Leclerc is on the F1 grid in 2018.