Our final race days for Formula 2 are over unfortunatley but that didn’t mean they weren’t crazy! Lets take a look…
Day 2-
Sprint Race 1-
Well, Daruvala got a brilliant launch as soon as the lights went out, taking the lead into Turn 1, however his team-mate didn’t get as good of a start, it saw Dan Ticktum dropping down the field.
Piastri was looking to wrap up his title during this race, he managed to get up to 6th form 10th at the start, in doing this he was behind his team-mate who was also battling for the championship.
Both Prema’s knew what they had to do, they both climbed up the field, after Shwartzman built up a gap between him and Piastri, he then took the final podium place from Lawson.
But that didn’t last long as Piastri responded and overtook Lawson on the following lap and was back in the tracks of Shwartzman. Both Prema’s looked happy in third and fourth until Piastri spotted a late opportunity and decided to take it at Turn 9 in which the Australian took the final podium spot.
The top 10 were: P1: Daruvala, P2: Drugovich, P3: Piastri, P4: Shwartzman, P5: Lawson, P6: Ticktum, P7: Pourchaire, P8: Zhou, P9: Boschung, P10: Armstrong.
With Oscar finishing 3rd this saw him wrap up the title, making him a 3 time champion in 3 years. With Armstrong finishing 10th this saw him on pole for sprint race 2.
Sprint Race 2-
A very crazy start for the second sprint of the day, but not for the race leader, Marcus Armstrong zoomed off into the distant leaving the rest of the field to battle it out.
Boschung and Zhou who was in 2nd and 3rd held their positions well, but everyone behind them wanted action, the newly corwned champ sent his Prema down the outside but a four car wide brawl saw him almost get pushed into the wall…
Even though he missed the wall, the Aussie came away with minor damage as he banged wheels with Lawson, which saw him drop down to 13th where as the Hitech went to 8th, Piastri was then found to be at fault and handed a 5sec time penalty.
The grid was given time to breath and cool down as a safety car appeared due to contact between Deledda and Caldwell at Turn 9, the HWA was forced to retire but Caldwell carried on.
Once the racing resumed Piastri started his charge in which he gained two spots from Nissany and Vips. That didn’t last long as Vips and Nissany came back at Piastri which saw the trio clip wheel, and only Nissany survived, this brought out another safety car as Vips and Piastri climbed out of their cars.
Before the safety car came out Zhou managed to get ahead of Boschung, but once the safety car went away, Zhou was promoted to first as Armstrong then had problems with the car which saw him pull over.
The top 10 is as follows: P1: Zhou, P2: Shwartzman, P3: Boschung, P4: Ticktum, P5: Drugovich, P6: Lawson, P7: Daruvala, P8: Doohan, P9: Pourchaire, P10: Viscaal.
Day 3-
Piastri wanted this race to be one to remember as it is his last in F2, and that he did he got away superbly.
Doohan starting P2, was the only one of the mediums, he was the only one with them out of the top 5 so he managed to cling on to P2 for three corners of wheel-to-wheel racing but Zhou was not giving up, the MP rookie clipped the curb in which he picked up a chunk of marble and went spinning off into the barriers.
Racing resumed when the safety car went in, the pit-stops started going on as Lawson was the first to ditch the super-softs on lap 7 which saw him back on the grid in 20th.
The crossover between prime and the alternate startegies started to arrive with seven laps to go, Armstrong headed in to collect the super-softs and began to pick the drivers with the mediums, he took places off Boschung and Lawson within a lap.
The full top 10 as follows: P1: Piastri, P2: Zhou, P3: Drugovich, P4: Pourchaire, P5: Shwartzman, P6: Ticktum, P7: Armstrong, P8: Vips, P9: Boschung and P10: Verschoor.
That concludes the 2021 Formula 2 season now, with Piastri taking the championship, his team-mate coming home in 2nd and Guanyu Zhou in 3rd who will be graduating to Formula 1 next year!
With the teams championship, Prema wrapped it up last weekend in Jeddah, Uni-Virtuosi managed to pinch 2nd from Carlin, which Carlin then ended up 3rd.
Jordan's F1 Blog 