Oscar Piastri wanted to greet Formula 2 with style. The new champion of the category, fresh from retiring in Race 2 with the title already in his pocket, won the Feature Race victory in Abu Dhabi without ever giving his rivals a minimum of hope.
Concrete, constant, unperturbed, Piastri managed the super soft tires at the start and then moved on to medium-sized and maintain the advantage over Guanyu Zhou.
Just like yesterday, even today on the first lap there were moments of chaos. When the traffic lights went out Piastri got off to a perfect start from pole, while Doohan, Zhou, Shwartzman and Lawson were the protagonists of a fierce battle.
It was the Australian of MP Motorsport and the New Zealander of Hitech GP, who spun in the sector driven first by the hotel and then, but only by Doohan, against the barriers.
The safety car had to intervene to allow the commissioners to remove the Australian’s car and on lap four the operations were finally resumed.
In a race where the emotions were very few, it was the strategy that dominated. The pit stop waltz was inaugurated by Lawson on the seventh lap to move from super soft to medium, imitated two laps later by Shwartzman and Ticktum, on lap 10 by Piastri and lap 11 by Zhou.
Pourchaire and Drugovich stayed on the track with medium tires. The rookie of the ART Grand Prix, even today the protagonist of a start to be forgotten, and the Brazilian of UNI-Virtuosi were phenomenal in managing the degradation, managing to run steadily on 1’39 ”.
Pourchaire opted for a stop on lap 29, while Drugovich rode the super soft Pirellis one lap later. The two immediately gave birth to a nice duel in which a Robert Shwartzman in crisis in middle school management was also the protagonist.
On lap 32, after a brief neutralization with the Virtual Safety Car due to Lawson’s car stopped in the third sector, Drugovich got the better of the Russian from Prema, followed shortly after by Pourchaire.
Under the checkered flag it was the Brazilian who conquered the third step of the podium, thus putting a patch on a rather colorless weekend and giving UNI-Virtuosi two trophies thanks to the second place obtained by Zhou.
The Chinese thus greeted the category in which he has raced for the last three years with a placement that does not allow him, however, to overtake Robert Shwartzman in the standings.
The Russian, despite the fifth position in the race, was able to maintain the second place with 194 points thus allowing Prema to do en plein with the conquest of the team title and the drivers title.
Dan Ticktum closed his last race in Formula 2 in sixth place. The Englishman, who will race in Formula E next year, was the author of a dirty touch against Lawson but during the whole weekend he never managed to shine and today preceded a Marcus Armstrong author of a solid race that redeems the disappointment of the retirement suffered yesterday in Race 2 when his car suddenly fell silent while he was in the lead.
Juri Vips closes in eighth position, penalized with 5 ” of time for an initial contact in which Lundgaard was the worst, while the top 10 was completed with Boschung ninth and Verschoor tenth thanks to a penalty of 5 ” inflicted. in Daruvala for exceeding the speed limits in the pit lane.
The 2021 F2 season thus goes on file with Piastri champion with a tally of 252.5 points ahead of Shwartzman at 194 and Zhou with 185, while the Prema team, after having secured the team title already in Jeddah, closed the year with 446.5 points ahead of UNI-Virtuosi, second with 290 points, and Carlin at 272.5 points.
This week it will already be time to think about 2022 with the end-of-season tests that will always be held on the Abu Dhabi track.
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