Liam Lawson Dominates Opening Bahrain F2 Sprint

Rookie, Liam Lawson clinched his maiden F2 victory with a dominant drive in the opening Bahrain Sprint Race of 2021 season.

Lawson punished poor starts from the front two drivers of Theo Pourchaire and David Beckmann as he rocketed away from third to claim the lead.

He then proceeded to control the race to the checkered flag after seeing off a late charge from fellow Red Bull junior, Jehan Daruvala to win by 0.925 seconds.

Beckmann clung onto third for his first F2 podium finish ahead of Robert Shwartzman who finished fourth after surviving a late fight back from PREMA teammate, Oscar Piastri who ended the race in fifth ahead of Christian Lundgaard, Guanyu Zhou and Dan Ticktum who round out the top eight.

Lirim Zendeli finished ninth ahead of Juri Vips who recovered from the back of grid to finish tenth and snatch reverse-sprint pole.

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Pourchaire and Beckmann struggled to get away once the lights went out but Lawson nailed his start, enabling him to blast past the pair into the lead as they scrapped over second with Pourchaire winning out after a brief fightback from Beckmann.

Further back, Daruvala improved to fourth as Piastri slipped back to seventh after running wide on exit of turn 10 to concede position to Shwartzman and Lundgaard.

Richard Verschoor meanwhile saw his F2 race debut end on lap two after he was accidentally sent spinning at turn one by Ticktum, as the Brit tried to avoid hitting Felipe Drugovich on his outside with the Brazilian suffering front wing damage from the incident.

Ticktum consequently was hit with a five second time penalty to drop him down to eighth in the final classification, having driven a calmly measured race to seventh at the checkered flag.

Marcus Armstrong’s race was ended at that same corner a lap later after a power issue forced him to pull over, unaware that Campos’ Ralph Boschung was on the inside line resulting in the Swiss driver unavoidably hitting Armstrong and suffering race-ending front wing damage.

Up front, Lawson comfortably controlled the race ahead of Pourchaire until lap 13 when the Frenchman suffered a power failure, causing him to retire on the exit of turn 10 after failing to reset the system as he dropped down the order.

Daruvala meanwhile pushed Beckmann hard and eventually got past with a sweeping outside move through turn four on lap 11, before inheriting second after Pourchaire’s retirement.

Last season’s Sakhir Sprint Race winner soon managed to reel Lawson in with the gap down to under a second by lap 18, only for Lawson to have saved enough tyre life to fend off Daruvala for the win.

Beckmann cruised home to third whilst Shwartzman had to fight for fourth ahead of Piastri, who had made a late inside move on Lundgaard on lap 16 for fifth, with Zhou coming home seventh ahead of Ticktum for the final point.

Guilherme Samaia and Zendeli finished ninth and tenth on the road but a 5s time penalty for the Brazilian promoted Zendeli to ninth and gifted reverse pole for the second Sprint Race later today (4:40pm UK Time) to Juri Vips who recovered from last position to tenth.

Position	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Liam Lawson	Hitech GP	23	44m 11.624
2	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	23	+ 0.925
3	David Beckmann	Charouz	23	+ 14.382
4	Robert Shwartzman	PREMA	23	+ 17.078
5	Oscar Piastri	PREMA	23	+ 17.504
6	Christian Lundgaard	ART GP	23	+ 18.552
7	Guanyu Zhou	Virtuosi	23	+ 22.289
8	Dan Ticktum	Carlin	23	+ 24.860
9	Lirim Zendeli	MP Motorsport	23	+ 27.291
10	Juri Vips	Hitech GP	23	+ 27.933
11	Guilherme Samaia	Charouz	23	+ 31.908
12	Roy Nissany	DAMS	23	+ 32.305
13	Bent Viscaal	Trident	23	+ 33.694
14	Matteo Nannini	HWA Racelab	23	+ 33.963
15	Marino Sato	Trident	23	+ 46.885
16	Felipe Drugovich	Virtuosi	23	+ 1m 03.250
17	Gianluca Petecof	Campos	23	+1m 06.941
18	Alessio Deledda	HWA Racelab	23	+1m 08.910
NC	Theo Pourchaire	ART GP	13	Power
NC	Ralph Boschung	Campos	2	Collision
NC	Marcus Armstrong	DAMS	2	Power
NC	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	2	Collision