ROOKIE RUSSELL SEALS F2 TITLE
Formula 2 champion George Russell says he believed title rival Alex Albon was good enough for an F1 drive, having secured a seat with Toro Rosso earlier this week.
Russell’s pole and victory in the feature race was enough to secure the title in his maiden season in the series.
He executed the perfect pitstop undercut on Prema Racing’s Nyck de Vries to take the lead which he’d lost at the start.
Albon stalled at the start of the race, but was already unlikely to challenge after needing to outscore Russell by 42 points over two races.
Russell has signed for Williams in F1 next year and fellow Brit Lando Norris will join Mclaren. Albon was confirmed by Toro Rosso on Monday despite agreeing a Formula E seat with e.dams.
The British/thai driver extracted himself from the deal and will race in F1 next year after being coveted by Red Bull for several weeks.
“Going into this he was always the dark horse; there was always a lot of focus on me and Lando for the championship, but Alex was always there and I kept reminding journalists about this,” said Russell.
“As it turned out it was Alex who was the only one who could fight me coming here.”
Russell joins Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg in winning the GP2/F2 series in his rookie year. He had won the GP3 Series title with the same team – ART – in 2017.
The seven wins he scored this year equals the record held by Stoffel Vandoorne and Charles Leclerc in the category.
“It’s a huge sigh of relief to be honest,” he added. “It’s been a very long and tough year for myself and ART, and we’ve worked really hard and probably from Baku we’ve been one of the quickest on track every single time.”
Nicholas Latifi and Arjun Maini escaped unhurt from a large crash in the feature race. Albon’s team-mate Latifi had stalled his car, and Maini hit him at speed leading the Indian driver to praise Dallara for the strength of its chassis.
Charouz Racing System driver Antonio Fuoco dominated the sprint race.