Oscar Piastri signed off his FIA Formula 2 championship winning campaign with his fourth feature race victory in a row at the season finale at Yas Marina.
The Prema driver dominated the race from pole position, with Virtuosi pair Guanyu Zhou and Felipe Drugovich completing the podium.
Piastri led away from pole position as MP Motorsport’s Jack Doohan – starting on the medium compound tyre – fought hard to defend second from Zhou through the first few corners.
But towards the end of the opening lap, Doohan ran off track and spun into the barriers on rejoining – triggering the race’s only safety car period – while Hitech’s Liam Lawson spun out of fifth at the same time, but was able to rejoin.
Piastri pulled out over a one-second lead at the resumption, with Zhou and Prema’s Robert Swartzman second and third.
The trio soon made their mandatory pitstop to switch from soft to medium compound tyres, with ART’s Theo Pourchaire then leading for more than half of the 33-lap encounter from Drugovich, both on the alternate strategy.
Pourchaire finally pitted for soft tyres with six laps remaining, but was compromised by a slow stop, allowing Drugovich to rejoin ahead of him in fourth after pitting next time by.
Drugovich ran wide on cold tyres on his out-lap, allowing Pourchaire to sweep by, and the pair used their fresh tyres to close in on the top three of Piastri, Zhou and Shwartzman.
Drugovich wrestled back fourth from Pourchaire, just before a brief virtual safety car period to recover Lawson’s car, which had stopped at the side of the track.
Drugovich and Pourchaire both dispatched Shwartzman on the penultimate lap, but were too far back to make further progress, as Piastri cruised home to win by 3.2s from Zhou, with Drugovich 4.9s further back in third.
Pourchaire finished fourth ahead of Shwartzman. Carlin’s Dan Ticktum held off alternate strategy runner Marcus Armstrong (ART) by 0.6s at the chequered flag to take sixth, while Hitech’s Juri Vips recovered from a 5s penalty for an opening lap collision with ART’s Christian Lundgaard to finish eighth.
Ralph Boschung was ninth for Campos ahead of Richard Verschoor, who was tenth for Charouz.
Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala missed out on a top ten finish after a 5s for speeding in the pitlane during a late pitstop.
HWA’s Jake Hughes was another to retire from the race after pulling into the pits with an issue.
Featured image credit: @formula2 official twitter
