Debutants this year also included Alexander Albon, Ralph Boschung, Sérgio Sette Câmara and Nyck de Vries.

Boschung joins the championship off the back of a moderately-successful GP3 campaign, where he won the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring, driving for Koiranen GP.

Oliver Rowland drew first blood in the sole practice session of the weekend, with Artem Markelov in second and rookie-Charles Leclerc in third.

[2] For qualifying, Charles Leclerc adopted a bold, yet successful strategy to take his first FIA Formula 2 Championship pole position on his debut.

[3] Antonio Fuoco was second fastest in the session, however would later be penalised three grid spots after being deemed to have impeded Artem Markelov.

The stewards deemed Malja to be at fault and subsequently was handed a five-place grid penalty for driving in a potentially dangerous manner and causing a collision.

Other penalties from the qualifying session included Sean Gelael, Sergio Canamasas and Stefano Coletti, all of whom failed to slow sufficiently for the VSC.

De Vries wasted his front row start and dropped down to fourth, while Markelov moved into the top three.

Markelov's tyre management paid dividends, passing Nato and closing rapidly on Leclerc as the pitstops started to come into effect.

Luca Ghiotto and Nobuharu Matsushita finished in seventh and eight respectively, giving both a front row start for the sprint race.

The Monegasque driver started from sixth on the grid and promptly drove to the front to grab an early lead.

That was, until after turn four, where contact between Rowland and Nato saw the Frenchman spin off the circuit with a flat right-rear tyre and significant damage to his car.

On lap 14, Markelov pitted for fresh rubber, adopting a strategy which was seemingly unnecessary given the exceptional tyre management achieved in the feature race.