PIASTRI TAKES F2 POLE IN SILVERSTONE

Australian Oscar Piastri qualified on pole position for Sunday’s FIA Formula 2 Championship Feature Race at the legendary Silverstone circuit in England.

In taking pole position, the reigning FIA Formula 3 champion became the fourth F2 pole sitter in as many rounds this season.

It was the Victorian’s first pole position since he competed in and won the Formula Renault Eurocup Series in 2019.

Piastri set a blinding benchmark of 1m 39.854s in the opening run of qualifying, he used the tyre warmth to his advantage by setting his fastest time on the second flying lap.

In the first half of the session, Piastri was impressively over half a second clear of the rest of the pack, a phenomenal margin in such a close and competitive championship.

In the second half of the 30-minute qualifying, several drivers improved and got closer, however Piastri was still comfortably fastest as the only driver who set a time in the 39s.

At that point home hero Ticktum was closest, 0.554s back in second, Felipe Drugovich was 0.597s behind, while Robert Shwartzman rounded out the top four.

Like many, Piastri was unable to improve his time on the second set of tyres, however it was good enough to take pole as nobody was able to knock him off the top before the session was called early.

With two and a half minutes to go Piastri’s Prema Racing teammate Shwartzman spun at Stowe and brought out the red flag.

With limited timing remaining in the session, it was determined that a restart could not take place.

In the end, the 20-year-old Aussie qualified 0.221s ahead of championship leader and fellow Alpine driver Guanyu Zhou.

In taking pole Piastri earned the extra four championship points, and now means that he now moved to within a single point of the Chinese driver.

Zhou set his time with about one second on the clock remaining as the session was red flagged for the Shwartzman machine which would not refire back into life.

Zhou did not improve his third sector where the yellow flags for Shwartzman’s stranded car were waved and therefore will be able to keep his front row start for the feature.

Brazilian Richard Verschoor qualified in third, 0.405s from pole position, but ahead of Ticktum who was fastest in practice.

Despite suffering a wrist injury after contact with Ticktum in Azerbaijan, Theo Pourchaire returned and put his car in fifth on the grid ahead of Felipe Drugovich.

Shwartzman finished the session in seventh ahead of Roy Nissany and Juri Vips.

Christian Lundgaard qualified in 10th, however lucky for him this gives him pole for the inverted top 10 grid race later today.

New Zealander Liam Lawson will start 11th, after qualifying only 0.8s slower than the pole-sitter Piastri.

Jehan Daruvala, Lirim Zendeli and another Kiwi Marcus Armstrong rounded out the top 15.

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