Pinpoint Piastri breezes to Formula 2 pole at the British Grand Prix

Oscar Piastri took pole at Silverstone for Sunday’s Formula 2 Feature Race, as a late Robert Shwartzman spin denies Championship leader Guanyu Zhou of a pole position start.

Christian Lundgaard was the first driver of the session to take to the track, followed by his ART teammate Theo Pourchaire and the rest of the fierce F2 pack.

The session’s first time was set by Marcus Armstrong but he was shortly demoted down the provisional pole spot by Dan Ticktum and Shwartzman, however, the New Zealander improved his time a lap later to reclaim top spot.

UNI-Virtuosi’s Zhou was the next driver to set a banker time, the Chinese driver was just eight-thousandths behind new pole-sitter, Richard Verschoor.

With eight minutes gone, Felipe Drugovich topped the session with a 1.40.692 – just five-tenths ahead of Armstrong.

As time elapsed, many more drivers topped the timesheets including Lundgaard, Shwartzman and Ticktum before Oscar Piastri was the first driver to break into the 1:39’s – the Aussie’s time was over half a second quicker than home-boy Ticktum.

Drugovich set a new personal best time which promoted himself up to third, just under six-tenths of a second behind pole-sitter Piastri.

With 17 minutes of the session remaining, all drivers returned to the pits as their first runs came to an end before re-emerging five minutes later with the battle for pole finely poised.

Ticktum improved through sector one however had his lap impeded after Armstrong ran on at the tricky Stowe corner and re-joined in front of the Brit.

Juri Vips was on a good lap, which would’ve put him in contention for the top five, but similarly to Armstrong, the Estonian had a moment at Stowe which ruined his lap.

The next driver to be cursed with some bad luck was Marino Sato, who suffered a technical issue and ran slowly through Maggots and Becketts and tentatively kept out of the way of oncoming drivers.

With just under three minutes to go, chaos continued. In a desperate attempt to break onto the front row, Shwartzman was the next driver to suffer a spin at Stowe but was unable to catch his car.

Zhou and Verschoor passed the stricken Russian, who was beached in the gravel on the outside of turn 15, and moved up into second and third respectfully – just before the red flag was bought out which ended the session.

In the end, it was Piastri who took pole ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race. The Prema driver will line up alongside Zhou on the front row.

What’s Next?

Christian Lundgaard, who qualified tenth, will start on the front row for race one with the ART driver joined by Hitech’s Juri Vips on the front row of the grid.

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