Piastri takes fourth F2 victory of 2021 to move one step closer to title

Piastri had to bide his time behind a stubborn Jehan Daruvala before taking the lead into Turn 1 with a handful of laps to go.

The victory looked sealed for the Alpine junior when Daruvala locked up after the second Safety Car restart.

Daruvala took to the Turn 1 run-off and maintained the lead by doing so, resulting in a five-second time penalty.

A third Safety Car meant it was bad news for Daruvala - with the pack backed up, the Indian driver dropped from second to classify 14th.

Christian Lundgaard was hit with a penalty as well after he overtook Bent Viscaal off the track in the first sequence of the corners.

The aforementioned penalties put Viscaal on the podium ahead of Prema’s Robert Shwartzman, who is Piastri’s nearest rival in the championship. 

Piastri and Shwartzman will start on the front row on the grid for tomorrow’s feature race, with 47 points between the pair in the championship standings.

Outside of the podium, Dan Ticktum finished fourth despite dropping to eighth at the midway point of the race.

Ticktum got back ahead of F2 rookie Jack Doohan with a spectacular lunge into Turn 27 - the final corner.

Doohan finished fifth ahead of Theo Pourchaire, who recovered well from 18th on the grid. 

Enzo Fittipaldi and Guanyu Zhou rounded out the points-paying positions in the sprint, with Ralph Boschung and Felipe Drugovich completing the top 10.

Click here for the full FIA Formula 2 results from the second sprint race in Jeddah.