Oliver Rowland ended his GP2 Series weekend in Hungary with a sixth place finish in the championship’s sprint race format at the Hungaroring.
After the previous day’s opening feature race in which he surged up the grid before narrowly missing out on points with an 11th place finish, Rowland started in that position at the head of the sixth row of the grid on Sunday.
Making a good start, the Racing Steps Foundation-backed driver took the outside line around the opening turn, driving wide off the track to avoid cars ahead that had made contact.
Rowland then took evasive measures to avoid further contact when Rapax drvier Arthur Pic spun across the track at turn two, causing multiple incidents which prompted a safety car interlude.
Having benefitted from the incidents ahead, Rowland had progressed up to seventh place which became sixth when Prema’s Antonio Giovinazzi pitted immediately on the lap five restart for damage inflicted during the earlier turn one incident.
MP Motorsport driver Rowland looked to close down the Campos Racing machine of Mitch Evans, getting to within one second of the New Zealander and into range of using his Drag Reduction System. But Rowland was also aware of the threat from Prema’s championship leader Pierre Gasly who set the fastest lap on lap 19.
Despite using his DRS, Rowland was unable to close in enough to pass Evans, the circuit’s high-speed corner characteristics preventing him from gaining a long enough tow. Similarly Gasly was unable to make further progress to challenge both Rowland and Evans.
It resulted in Rowland having to settle for a sixth place finish with ART Grand Prix’s Sergei Sirotkin scoring his first race victory of the season with the Racing Engineering duo of Jordan King and Norman Nato taking the remaining podium places.