ROWLAND AND FUOCO DISQUALIFIED FROM FEATURE RACE

Oliver Rowland and Antonio Fuoco have been disqualified from this evening’s feature race at the Yas Marina Circuit following the race stewards’ review of reports from the Technical Delegate regarding anomalies found during post-race scrutineering.

Rowland, who provisionally won the race on track, finished the race with a skid block which was be below the prescribed thickness in the Technical Regulations: the penalty for this breach is disqualification from Race 1, although the Briton will be allowed to start tomorrow’s sprint race from the back of the grid.

Antonio Fuoco has also been penalised after his front tyres were below the minimum specified tyre pressure. As a result the Italian driver, who had finished third after passing teammate Charles Leclerc on the line, is also disqualified from today’s results but permitted to start tomorrow’s race from the back of the grid as well.

These disqualifications promote Artem Markelov to first place for a fifth win this season, with Leclerc now classified second ahead of Luca Ghiotto, Nyck de Vries, Nicholas Latifi, Nobuharu Matsushita, Alexander Albon, Jordan King (who will start from reverse pole tomorrow), Sergio Sette Camara and Louis Delétraz.

The result means that Markelov has 206 points in the Drivers’ Championship ahead of Rowland on 189: with 17 points on offer tomorrow Markelov is the 2017 FIA Formula 2 Vice-Champion, by dint of having more wins than Rowland.

In the battle for the Teams’ Championship crown, RUSSIAN TIME have now reclaimed the lead on 375 points, 10 ahead of PREMA Racing in second on 365 and DAMS in third on 355 points.