Fraser MasefieldOscar Piastri laid down a strong marker to land the FIA Formula 2 title in his first year of trying after securing a dominant pole to flag victory in Sochi’s F2 feature race.
Australian Piastri, who won the F3 title last year, got the groundwork done in Friday qualifying by taking pole position for the most important race of the weekend.
And the Prema driver did not disappoint when the lights went out on Sunday, only once losing the lead during the mandatory pit stops to lead home Theo Pourchaire and Jehan Daruvala for his third victory of the season.
It's another win for @OscarPiastri! 🏆
And the championship lead has been extended to 36 points 👏#RussianGP #F2 pic.twitter.com/PHFTIjqdZg
— Formula 2 (@Formula2) September 26, 2021
“It was a very tough race, pretty different to Monza in terms of having no breaks for Safety Cars and stuff like that,” said Piastri in the post-race press conference. “I was pushing the whole way and I could see Théo in the mirrors the whole way, and I think the gap was toing and froing a little bit.
“The most difficult part of the race, or most critical part, was trying to get through the alternate strategy guys quickly. I think we got through them reasonably the same but it was a very tough race.”
More importantly, with more points available for the feature race, Piastri holds a 36-point lead over closest rival Guanyu Zhou, who could only manage to finish sixth after losing places at the start.
Super happy to get my third pole position in a row, and back-to-back feature race wins. It was a good weekend’s work, cheers Sochi 🤟 pic.twitter.com/r1sF2ygXzw
— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) September 27, 2021
It will be a long wait for Piastri to try and hammer another nail into the Zhou championship coffin, with a massive ten week break before racing resumes in Abu Dhabi from 3-5 December.
“My engineer told me on the radio that Zhou was in eighth into the first corner I think, that was good, but then I was very occupied for the rest of the race with trying to keep the victory,” added Piastri.
“It’s nice to have that gap, and now I’ve got two and a half months of dream about that, but I still want to extend it more and make it a bit more comfortable because with the format this year everyone could change in the blink of an eye. So not getting ahead of myself with that.”
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Another good weekend for @PREMA_Team 💪
And a great one for @CarlinRacing too!#RussianGP #F2 pic.twitter.com/3fSicoPkh9
— Formula 2 (@Formula2) September 26, 2021
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