The Temple of Speed plays host to round five of the F2 Championship as the second half of the Formula 2 season commences

After eight weeks without any racing, the drivers of tomorrow are finally back ahead of a thrilling weekend’s worth of action at the iconic Monza circuit.

The 5.793km track is rightfully labelled ‘The Temple of Speed’ due to its high-speed nature and is a firm fan and driver favourite.

Formula 2 have had a very interesting first half of the season as Guanyu Zhou led the Championship for the first three rounds, but Oscar Piastri stole the top spot from the Chinese driver after a positive race weekend at Silverstone.

The Prema Racing driver leads the way on 108 points, five points ahead of UNI-Virtuosi’s Zhou in second and 17 points ahead of his teammate Robert Shwarztman in third.

Last time out at Silverstone, the aforementioned Shwartzman scored his second victory of the season as he fended off Juri Vips to win the first Sprint Race of the weekend.

Claiming reverse grid pole was Richard Verschoor, who has gone slightly under the radar with his good performances for MP Motorsport. The Dutchman drove a stellar race to claim his maiden F2 win and prove what a fantastic driver he is.

The two Championship protagonists, Zhou and Piastri, started from second and first on the grid for the final race of the weekend.

Zhou and Dan Ticktum jumped the Prema driver at the start at the former continued on to win the race to gain some ground in the Drivers’ Championship.

Piastri finished in third behind the duo as the Australian fended off the challenge from Verschoor, who pushed him all the way but the MP Motorsport driver inevitably finished fourth.

Looking ahead at this weekend’s race at Monza, the circuit has featured on the Formula 2 calendar ever since the Championship was formed back in 2017.

ART Grand Prix’s Nobuharu Matsushita claimed the vital pole position by close to a tenth of a second as the Japanese driver set a 1:30.982 lap time. After a poor getaway, he failed to capitalise on his fantastic grid spot as he crossed the line to finish third, which saw the ART man later promoted to second after race winner Luca Ghiotto was handed a penalty.

With Ghiotto dropping down to fourth, Antonio Fuoco was promoted to first after he finished second with Nicholas Latifi rounding out the podium positions.

In the Sprint Race, all the bad luck was brushed aside as Ghiotto clinched the win. The Russian Time driver finished over two seconds ahead of second-placed Sergio Sette Camara and over four seconds ahead of third-placed Fuoco, who started from pole position after his Feature Race victory.

Last year’s races did not fail to disappoint with high-quality drama up until the very end. Callum Ilott dominated qualifying once more which allowed the Brit to put his car on pole position for the first race of the weekend. He finished the race in sixth as Mick Schumacher, his Championship rival in the latter stages of the season, picked up the win as Ghiotto and Christian Lundgaard rounded out the podium positions.

The second race of the weekend saw Dan Ticktum capitalise on his good starting position as he came across the line first to take the Sprint Race victory, but he was later disqualified from the race which handed Ilott a valuable 15 points with the UNI-Virtuosi driver crossing the line ahead of Lundgaard and Schumacher in second and third.

Monza always brings a lot of excitement to the fans and the drivers and it definitely shapes up to do the same this time around as the second half of the 2021 F2 Championship gets underway.

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