Championship leader Piastri claims second successive F2 pole position ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race at the Italian Grand Prix

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At Prema Racing’s home Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri delivered an important pole position to extend his lead at the top of the drivers’ standings by an extra four points.

The Australian will have a tough task on his hands as one of his main championship rivals and fellow Alpine Academy driver, Guanyu Zhou, starts directly behind him in third with Jehan Daruvala alongside the Formula 2 rookie on the front row ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race.

As It Happened

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The Hitech duo of Juri Vips and Liam Lawson were the first drivers out of the pit lane. The rest of the field joined them out on track shortly after as the drivers warmed up their tyres ahead of their push laps.

Strategic calls already began as Vips went through the pits and returned back onto the circuit at the back of the huge train of cars.

Theo Pourchaire was the first driver to set a competitive lap time with a 1:33.205. His ART teammate Christian Lundgaard went narrowly slower putting himself into second for the time being.

Rapid times were set as Dan Ticktum moved himself up to provisional pole but fell down to P2 after Ralph Boschung’s brilliant 1:32.609 lap, four-hundredths quicker than the Carlin driver.

After the second competitive runs, Oscar Piastri snatched the top spot away from Boschung by two-tenths. Both Lawson and Felipe Drugovich improved on their first lap times to move up to fourth and fifth with the top 10 separated by six-tenths.

At the halfway point of the session, the drivers peeled into the pits for a tyre change and to prepare themselves ahead of the second part of qualifying. Piastri was on provisional pole ahead of Boschung in second and Ticktum in third. Lawson followed in fourth with Drugovich in fifth, Vips in sixth, Daruvala in seventh, Zhou in eighth, Robert Shwartzman in ninth and Marino Sato in 10th.

With 11 minutes to go, all of the drivers came back out onto the circuit for their final competitive runs of qualifying.

The two Campos drivers, David Beckmann and Boschung, used Vips’ pit lane trick. However, the latter was stopped on the FIA bridge which dropped him substantially behind the back of the field.

Zhou, Pourchaire and Beckmann all improved on their positions, however, Piastri remained on pole position by a tenth and a half.

Lawson moved up to first temporarily but was almost instantly displaced by Zhou then Daruvala before Piastri returned to provisional pole.

The Australian held onto pole position until the end of qualifying with Daruvala finishing in second and Zhou in third. Lawson retained fourth place, Drugovich followed in fifth, early pace-setter Boschung in sixth, Pourchaire in seventh, Ticktum in eighth, Vips in ninth and Beckmann rounded out the top 10.

What’s Next?

On his Campos debut, David Beckmann starts the first Sprint Race from pole position after he qualified 10th ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race. The German will be joined by Juri Vips on the front row of the grid with championship contenders, Dan Ticktum, Theo Pourchaire, Guanyu Zhou and Oscar Piastri starting from third, fourth, eighth and 10th respectively.

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