Round 7 sees the teams arrive at the Hungaroring in Budapest, Hungary for the second half of the 2017 FIA Formula 2 Championship, with the halfway point passed in race 2 at Silverstone 2 weeks ago. The tight, twisty circuit is well known to the drivers and teams alike, having all raced there previously. Qualifying is more important than ever, given the difficulty in overtaking under race conditions, with all of the grid looking to find a way to stop championship leader bagging yet another pole position.

Silverstone saw the Monegasque driver extend his lead further in the championship after setting the pace all weekend long: Leclerc topped free practice on Thursday before claiming a strong pole position, setting the fastest lap by over four tenths from Oliver Rowland and Norman Nato, before sprinting to his 5th win of the season in the feature race well ahead of the race long squabble between Nato and Rowland.

In the sprint race Nicholas Latifi bagged his maiden win from pole position with a solid, mature drive to victory ahead of RUSSIAN TIME teammates Luca Ghiotto and Artem Markelov to set to rest any ghosts lingering from his Barcelona efforts: DAMS teammate Rowland tried to hold back the Russian at the last lap safety car restart but was denied, with Markelov easily nipping past for a podium, with the Briton picking up a time penalty for his efforts.

Mario Isola, Pirelli: "Although the speeds are relatively low, the Hungaroring works the tyres hard throughout the lap. This has been considered with our selections of the medium and soft compounds for Formula 2, with the intention that as usual drivers will have to display some degree of tyre management: an important skill for them to learn on the way to Formula 1. It could also help to create close racing at a circuit where overtaking is not easy."

Santino Ferrucci moves up from the GP3 Series to FIA Formula 2 with Trident in car 17. The American is the latest driver in the championship to have links to a Formula 1 team, continuing his development role with Haas F1 for a second year.

Following Round 7 there will be a mid-season Formula 1 test, on 1-2 August. 7 Formula 2 drivers will be taking part: Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Nicholas Latifi (Renault), Luca Ghiotto (Williams), Gustav Malja (Sauber), Nobuharu Matsushita (Sauber), Sean Gelael (Toro Rosso) and Santino Ferrucci (Haas).

The Budapest round is the last round of the championship before the traditional mid-season break: the next round will be in Spa-Francorchamps on 25-27 August.

Driver Standings

Pos	Name	Nat	Team	Points
1	Leclerc	MON	Prema Racing	188
2	Markelov	RUS	Russian Time	121
3	Rowland	GBR	DAMS	117
4	Latifi	CAN	DAMS	91
5	Ghiotto	ITA	Russian Time	86
6	Nato	FRA	Pertamina Arden	67
7	Matsushita	JPN	ART Grand Prix	66
8	Albon	THA	ART Grand Prix	59
9	King	GBR	MP Motorsport	49
10	de Vries	NED	Rapax	47
11	Malja	SWE	Racing Engineering	28
12	Fuoco	ITA	Prema Racing	23
13	Canamasas	ESP	Rapax/Trident	21
14	Cecotto	VEN	Rapax	16
15	Boschung	SUI	Campos Racing	11
16	Sirotkin	RUS	ART Grand Prix	9
17	Gelael	INO	Pertamina Arden	3

Team Standings

Pos	Team	Points
1	Prema Racing	211
2	DAMS	208
3	Russian Time	207
4	ART Grand Prix	134
5	Rapax	81
6	Pertamina Arden	70
7	MP Motorsport	49
8	Racing Engineering	28
9	Campos Racing	11
10	Trident	3