F2 Abu Dhabi: Champion Piastri signs off with feature race victory

After securing the title with two races to spare on Saturday, Piastri produced another faultless drive from pole to clinch his sixth victory of the season.

The Australian didn’t have it easy and needed to push in the closing stages to see off a growing challenge from the alternative strategy runners Theo Pourchaire and Felipe Drugovich on supersoft tyres.

UNI-Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou managed to hold off an early challenge from Robert Shwartzman to finish second, while Drugovich and Pourchaire made their tyre strategy call work to finish third and fourth respectively.

There was drama even before the race had started as Piastri damaged his front wing on his way to the grid requiring his Prema team to change the nose before the race start.

One the lights went out it was polesitter Piastri that led the field into Turn 1 with Jack Doohan, one of the only front runners to start on the medium tyres, slotted into second with Zhou in third.

The difference in tyre compounds allowed Piastri to gap the field while Doohan came under pressure form Zhou on the super softs.

As the field reached Turn 6-7 several cars ran across the chicane while Christian Lundgaard’s poor luck continued as contact from Juri Vips caused the ART runner to sustain a spin. The latter was hit with a five-second penalty.

Back at the front, Zhou was all over the rear wing of Doohan before finding a way through at Turn 9. Doohan ran wide onto the dust which triggered his car to snap to the left, firing him into the barriers at speed. Liam Lawson also spun in a similar fashion while fighting Shwartzman for fourth, but in this case Lawson was able to continue but dropped to seventh.

Doohan climbed from his car unscathed but the incident triggered a safety car to allow marshals to clear the Australian’s MP Motorsport car.

Racing resumed on lap 5 with Piastri leading Zhou, Shwartzman, while Ralph Boschung sat fourth ahead of Pourchaire and Dan Ticktum.

Lawson was the first of the front runners to pit on lap 7, which sparked a flurry of action in pit lane. Leader, Piastri rejoined in 12th position but in the net lead ahead of Zhou, who came under pressure from Shwartzman, while Lawson jumped Ticktum.

Pourchaire, having opted to start on the alternative strategy, inherited the race lead from Drugovich and Marcus Armstrong.

A loose bollard that came to rest at the final corner threatened to interfere with the race but a brave marshal managed to retrieve the debris without race control deploying a virtual safety car.

At the front, Pourchaire, yet to pit, opened up 25.4s gap over Piastri - the top runner on the prime strategy.

Pourchaire eventually took service on lap 27 but crucially lost some of the advantage gained with a slow stop. Drugovich, who had sat behind the Frenchman, elected to pit a lap later for super softs and rejoined in fourth ahead of Pourchaire.

However, Pourchaire managed to reclaim the position as his rival struggled on cold tyres before Drugovich responded again.

The pit stops allowed Piastri to reclaim the race lead but with a nine second gap over Pourchaire the top runner on the super soft tyres. Zhou occupied second, three seconds behind Piastri with Shwartzman third, only 0.7s ahead of Drugovich.

The race was neutralised briefly under a virtual safety car when Lawson pulled off the road to retire.

Once back under green, Drugovich and Pourchaire made the most of their fresh rubber to pass Shwartzman for third and fourth.

The supersoft-shod pair ran out of laps to challenge for the race lead as Piastri took the win from Zhou, Drugovich and Pourchaire.

Shwartzman was left to come home in fifth ahead of Ticktum and Armstrong, Vips, Boschung and Richard Verschoor, who was deputising for the injured Enzo Fittipaldi at Charouz.

F2 Abu Dhabi feature race results - 33 laps

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	-
2	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	3.200	3.200
3	Felipe Drugovich	UNI-Virtuosi	8.200	8.200
4	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	9.900	9.900
5	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	13.300	13.300
6	Dan Ticktum	Carlin	19.100	19.100
7	Marcus Armstrong	DAMS	19.700	19.700
8	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	22.500	22.500
9	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	26.400	26.400
10	Richard Verschoor	Charouz Racing System	27.200	27.200
11	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	30.000	30.000
12	Bent Viscaal	Trident	32.600	32.600
13	Roy Nissany	DAMS	37.300	37.300
14	Clement Novalak	MP Motorsport	37.800	37.800
15	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	40.400	40.400
16	Guilherme Samaia	Charouz Racing System	41.000	41.000
17	Marino Sato	Trident	42.300	42.300
18	Olli Caldwell	Campos Racing	43.800	43.800
19	Alessio Deledda	HWA Racelab	1'20.300	1'20.300
20	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	4 laps
	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	12 laps
	Jack Doohan	MP Motorsport
View full results