F2 Abu Dhabi: Piastri beats Doohan to claim fifth consecutive pole

The championship leader remains on course to wrap up the title in style but was pushed hard during the 30 minute qualifying session at the re-profiled Yas Marina Circuit.

It appeared FIA Formula 3 runner-up Doohan was set to secure a stunning pole before Piastri fired in a 1m35.077s with his final effort to claim the feature race pole by 0.213 seconds and pick up the four bonus championship points.

Title rival Guanyu Zhou will start Sunday’s feature race behind the all-Australian front row in third, with Robert Shwartzman, second in the standings, in fourth. The top four were separated by 0.283s after the hard-fought session.

Juri Vips was the first to post a significant lap time but his spell at the top of the leaderboard was short-lived as times began to tumble as the field warmed up their supersoft tyres.

Liam Lawson, Marcus Armstrong, Marino Sato and Doohan enjoyed brief moments on top before the efforts were eclipsed by Jehan Daruvala and Shwartzman until Piastri struck.

The Australian lowered the benchmark to a 1m36.044s but that was beaten momentarily until he cut the beam with his second flying lap to clock a 1m35.379s.

Ralph Boschung sat second ahead of Shwartzman, Daruvala, Doohan and Theo Pourchaire as the session hit the halfway mark and drivers competed their first runs.

As the final runs began, Boschung improved his time on his first flyer but stayed second while Zhou jumped from eighth to third.

Jack Doohan, MP Motorsport

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

However, Shwartzman found more pace from his Prema-run machine to grab second, 0.059s shy of Piastri, while Felipe Drugovich slotted into fourth position. Drugovich’s team-mate, Zhou, responded to move back to the top before sliding down to third.

Doohan then turned heads by surging to the top of the times before Piastri struck again to deny the rookie a first F2 pole.

Zhou was left to settle for third while Shwartzman finished ahead of Boschung with Pourchaire in sixth.

Lawson ended up in seventh, in front of Drugovich and Dan Ticktum, while Daruvala was 10th, earning the reversed-grid pole position for Saturday’s opening sprint race at 1220 local time (0820 GMT).

F2 Abu Dhabi - Qualifying results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	12	1'35.077
2	Jack Doohan	MP Motorsport	11	1'35.290	0.213
3	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	12	1'35.348	0.271
4	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	12	1'35.360	0.283
5	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	12	1'35.496	0.419
6	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	12	1'35.504	0.427
7	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	12	1'35.511	0.434
8	Felipe Drugovich	UNI-Virtuosi	12	1'35.612	0.535
9	Dan Ticktum	Carlin	12	1'35.618	0.541
10	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	12	1'35.821	0.744
11	Marcus Armstrong	DAMS	12	1'35.855	0.778
12	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	12	1'36.016	0.939
13	Roy Nissany	DAMS	12	1'36.080	1.003
14	Marino Sato	Trident	12	1'36.241	1.164
15	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	12	1'36.282	1.205
16	Richard Verschoor	Charouz Racing System	12	1'36.293	1.216
17	Bent Viscaal	Trident	12	1'36.312	1.235
18	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	12	1'36.462	1.385
19	Olli Caldwell	Campos Racing	12	1'36.570	1.493
20	Clement Novalak	MP Motorsport	11	1'36.722	1.645
21	Guilherme Samaia	Charouz Racing System	12	1'36.741	1.664
22	Alessio Deledda	HWA Racelab	12	1'38.657	3.580
View full results