Nyck De Vries wins his first F2 race at the Monaco sprint race as Leclerc's weekend goes from bad to worse

In the FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race today, McLaren-Honda junior driver Nyck de Vries scored a first Formula 2 victory of his career in Monaco ahead of Johnny Cecotto Jr and Gustav Majla in an action-packed feature race behind him; as championship leader Charles Leclerc retired after leading early on.

The start of the race saw Johnny Cecotto Jr lining up on Pole Position and could use that to his benefit; given all the experience that he has within the series. But Cecotto Jr did not have the best start and this enabled his team mate de Vries to power on past him and take the lead of which he would never lose control of.

In the opening laps of the F2 race, De Vries quickly pulled a gap out on his team mate Cecotto Jr. At this stage in the race, Leclerc made a couple of moves early on at Anthony Noghes. But three laps later, we saw Charles Leclerc and Norman Nato colliding with each other with Leclerc received a ten-second penalty for the incident and as for Nato; his miserable run of form continued as he retired for the third race time in five races as Leclerc later retired on Lap 22.

By Lap 11, Nabil Jeffri has passed Sean Galael for thirteenth place as De Vries leads the grid. Three laps later sees Ralph Boschung retiring from the race with a mechanical failure and officially retires from the race. At Lap 17, De Vries leads his team mate Cecotto Jr by 6.7 seconds.

With Leclerc retiring from the race on Lap 22, all eyes were on the midfield battles in the grid especially between Artem Markelov and Alexander Albon. In the latter stages of the race, Ghiotto is slowly gaining on Malja for third place; with the gap being as little as 0.5 seconds between the two drivers. Also, we saw a major impact between Sergio Canamasas and Oliver Rowland in Lap 28 when Canamasas went too deeply into the final corners of the lap and hit the back of the DAMS car. The incident will be investigated after the race.

But it was Nyck De Vries who claimed his first win in the FIA F2 Championship and becomes the fifth different winner in the series so far with a fantastic and controlled drive from start to finish.

De Vries finished ahead of his team mate Johnny Cecotto Jr who finished in second place 0.864 seconds behind (and ended Rapax's winless streak in the series) and ahead of Gustav Majla in a brilliant third place and securing his first podium in the series 13.769 seconds behind De Vries.

Luca Ghiotto finished the race in a credible fourth place ahead of Artem Markelov in fifth place, Alexander Albion in sixth place, Nobuharu Matushita in seventh place, Jordan King in eighth (and will start on pole for the reverse-grid sprint race), Oliver Rowland in ninth place and Antonio Fuoco in tenth place.

Nabil Jeffri finished the race out of the points in eleventh place ahead of Sean Galael in twelfth place, Nicholas Latifi in thirteenth place, Sergio Sette Camara in fourteenth place and Robert Visioiu in fifteenth place.

As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Loius Deletraz finished the race in sixteenth place ahead of Sergio Canamasas in seventeenth place. Charles Leclerc, Ralph Boschung and Norman Nato did not finish the race.

The classification of the Sprint Race for the Monaco GP F2 race is as follows:-

1. Nyck de Vyres, Rapax, 41:51.284s
2. Johnny Cecotto Jr, Rapax, 9.834s
3. Gustav Malja, Racing Engineering, 10.415s
4. Luca Ghiotto, RUSSIAN TIME, 10.881s
5. Artem Markelov, RUSSIAN TIME, 11.258s
6. Alexander Albion, ART Grand Prix, 11.901s
7. Nobuharo Matsushita, ART Grand Prix, 13.627s
8. Jordan King, MP Motorsport, 13.970s
9. Oliver Rowland, DAMS, 28.993s
10. Antonio Fuoco, Prema Racing, 29.051s
11. Nabil Jaffri, Trident, 34.041s
12. Sean Gelael, Pertamina Arden, 42.732s
13. Nicholas Latifi, DAMS, 43.430s
14. Sergio Cette Camara, MP Motorsport, 46.423s
15. Robert Visoiu, Campos Racing, 47.007s
16. Louis Deletraz, Racing Engineering, 53.179s
17. Sergio Canamasas, Trident, 55.677s
18. Charles Leclerc, Prema Racing, Not Classified
19. Ralph Boschung, Campos Racing, Not Classified
20. Norman Nato, Pertamina Arden, Not Classified

Picture supplied by the FIA Formula 2 World Championship

Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa