Camara wins Abu Dhabi opener as DAMS seal F2 title

McLaren Formula 1 junior Sergio Sette Camara clinched his second victory of the 2019 Formula 2 Championship as DAMS wrapped up the teams’ title in the Abu Dhabi feature race.

Polesitter Camara recovered from a slow getaway that saw him drop from first on the opening lap to claim the victory, which marked his first feature race triumph and his first win since the Red Bull Ring sprint race.

The victory sealed DAMS’ first teams’ championship success of F2’s new era and its first series title since 2014, just three months after the French squad was rocked by the recent death of its founder Jean-Paul Driot in August.

Camara finished over five seconds clear of Carlin’s Nobuharu Matsushita, who made the most of running on an alternative strategy to charge to second, while Renault F1 protege Guanyu Zhou completed the podium for UNI-Virtuosi.

Louis Deletraz took the lead at the start but fell to fourth in the closing stages in the second Carlin, with Callum Ilott also losing ground from his front-row starting berth to take fifth for the Sauber Junior Team by Charouz Racing.

Sixth place went to Luca Ghiotto, who finished ahead of Williams 2020 F1 driver Nicholas Latifi and Trident’s Giuliano Alesi, who claimed eighth and reverse grid pole for Sunday’s season finale despite picking up a five-second time penalty for a Virtual Safety Car infringement.

Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin rounded out the final points-paying positions in ninth and 10th for Prema and ART Grand Prix respectively, while champion Nyck de Vries had a day to forget as he dropped to 13th.

Full results from the Abu Dhabi F2 Feature Race.