F2 Jeddah: Piastri wins red-flagged shortened feature race
Oscar Piastri claimed victory in a restarted Formula 2 feature race in Saudi Arabia that was red-flagged following a crash involving Olli Caldwell and Guilherme Samaia.
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
The Australian was declared the winner of a shortened 20-minute race staged after the original race was red-flagged following a frightening startline shunt, where the stalled Theo Pourchaire was collected by the unsighted Enzo Fittipaldi.
Both drivers were conscious and extricated from the cars before being transferred to the King Fahad Armed Forced hospital in Jeddah.
This was the second delay to the start of the race after marshals were required to repair the track barriers caused by an earlier support race.
As a result of the delays, half points were awarded with Piastri claiming the win to extend his championship lead.
Prema Racing team-mate Robert Shwartzman finished second while Ralph Boschung netted third place.
Piastri led the field on the rolling start down to Turn 1 with team-mate Shwartzman in pursuit, while Boschung held third ahead of Zhou.
The leader wasted little time in establishing a 1.2s lead over his team-mate in the opening quarter of the race.
Behind, Zhou attempted to pass Boschung but the latter put up a strong defence which resulted in an investigation from the stewards.
However, racing was short-lived as a crash, involving F2 debutant Caldwell and Samaia initially drew the safety car, to trigger leader Piastri, third-placed Boschung, Zhou in fourth and Juri Vips into the pits.
Moments later race control issued the red flags signalling the end of the race.
Oscar Piastri, Prema Racing
Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd
In this circumstance, Piastri was declared the winner on the countback rule, finishing ahead of Shwartzman with Boschung third.
Zhou claimed fourth in front of team-mate Felipe Drugovich, Vips, Christian Lundgaard, Marcus Armstrong, Liam Lawson and Dan Ticktum rounded out the points scorers.
The F2 championship will conclude at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix next weekend.
F2 Jeddah - Feature race results (5 laps):
Cla | Driver | Team | Time |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Oscar Piastri | Prema Powerteam | - |
2 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema Powerteam | 1.100 |
3 | Ralph Boschung | Campos Racing | 2.700 |
4 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | 3.000 |
5 | Felipe Drugovich | UNI-Virtuosi | 4.400 |
6 | Jüri Vips | HitechGP | 4.800 |
7 | Christian Lundgaard | ART Grand Prix | 6.000 |
8 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | 6.100 |
9 | Liam Lawson | HitechGP | 6.500 |
10 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | 9.400 |
11 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 9.500 |
12 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | 10.100 |
13 | Jack Doohan | MP Motorsport | 10.400 |
14 | Logan Sargeant | HWA Racelab | 12.300 |
15 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | 12.700 |
16 | Olli Caldwell | Campos Racing | 13.700 |
17 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz Racing System | 15.400 |
18 | Marino Sato | Trident | 16.800 |
19 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | 17.100 |
20 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | 20.700 |
Theo Pourchaire | ART Grand Prix | ||
Enzo Fittipaldi | Charouz Racing System | ||
View full results |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Related video
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments