Oscar Piastri snatched victory in the second Bahrain Sprint Race from Christian Lundgaard and Guanyu Zhou in a Saturday night thriller.
A late safety car saw multiple drivers including Piastri pit but Juri Vips led the initial charge following the return to green flag racing until a technical issue dropped him out of the points.
Piastri thereafter unleashed a ferocious charge to catch and pass Zhou at the start of the final lap to clinch victory, with Christian Lundgaard demoting Zhou to third on the road.
Lundgaard initially dropped to ninth as the result of a 10 second time penalty, until his penalty was rescinded post-race to hand him second to create an all Alpine Academy podium.
Zhou consequently finished third ahead of Jehan Daruvala in third as Richard Verschoor, Theo Pourchaire, David Beckmann and Marino Sato who round out the points.
Matteo Nannini sadly missed out on his maiden F2 point in ninth after Lundgaard’s second placed finish was reinstated.
Piastri also inherited the championship lead ahead of Daruvala by a single point following Lundgaard’s podium reinstatement, otherwise the latter would of led Piastri by a point heading into tomorrow’s Feature Race.
Pole-sitter, Vips made a solid start to lead from Lirim Zendeli but just behind the front two, Dan Ticktum got spun out of the race by Robert Shwartzman as the Brit cut back from the outside of the opening corner to take the racing line.
Shwartzman also retired with race-ending damage as the safety car was deployed for three laps.
Upon the restart on lap four, Vips made a clean getaway as Zhou quickly cleared Zendeli for second on the exit of turn three, whilst Liam Lawson and Felipe Drugovich quickly cleared Lundgaard and Piastri to climb to fourth and fifth respectively.
Both drivers soon demoted Zendeli down to fifth on the next lap as Zhou snatched the lead from Vips on the exit of turn four to take the lead.
Zendeli’s race however was ended on lap six when Lundgaard clipped his right rear on exit of turn two, with the German limping on after his pit-stop but a lap down before the damage proved too much and he retired on lap 13 as Lundgaard was hit with a 10s time penalty.
Lap 15 saw the race turned on its head when Lundgaard fought back to take Lawson and Drugovich for third into turn four, with Lawson immediately getting spun around by Drugovich to trigger a safety car.
Several drivers including second-placed Vips decided to pit in a gamble which proved correct, as Vips quickly reeled in the front runners on the restart on lap 18 to reclaim second within one lap as Drugovich and Armstrong fell down the order on dead tyres and out of the points.
Vips proceeded to swiftly reel in Zhou but a virtual safety car on lap 20 after Alessio Deledda stopped at turn three with technical issues halted his charge, only to suffer similar issues himself a lap later out of turn 12 to send him down to 16th at the flag.
Piastri consequently inherited second from the Estonian and ensured that his decision to pit for softs was correct, as he rapidly caught Zhou and passed the Chinese driver at the start of the final lap.
Lundgaard soon afterwards took second out of turn eight but his initial penalty dropped him to ninth as Piastri took the flag ahead of Zhou but Lundgaard’s successful appeal saw him reinstated in second ahead of Zhou who edged Daruvala out for third.
Verschoor meanwhile recovered from his early exit in the first sprint race to finish fifth ahead of fellow opening race retiree, Pourchaire to complete the top six.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | 23 | 46m 19.610 |
| 2 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | 23 | + 0.774 |
| 3 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | 23 | + 2.076 |
| 4 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 23 | + 2.494 |
| 5 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | 23 | + 2.966 |
| 6 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | 23 | + 3.759 |
| 7 | David Beckmann | Charouz | 23 | + 6.387 |
| 8 | Marino Sato | Trident | 23 | + 8.096 |
| 9 | Matteo Nannini | HWA Racelab | 23 | + 9.733 |
| 10 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | 23 | + 12.180 |
| 11 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | 23 | + 12.442 |
| 12 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | 23 | + 16.744 |
| 13 | Gianluca Petecof | Campos | 23 | + 17.569 |
| 14 | Felipe Drugovich | Virtuosi | 23 | + 24.547 |
| 15 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | 23 | + 27.471 |
| 16 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | 23 | + 36.980 |
| 17 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | 23 | + 48.466 |
| NC | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | 20 | Power |
| NC | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | 14 | Collision |
| NC | Lirim Zendeli | MP Motorsport | 13 | Damage |
| NC | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | 0 | Collision |
| NC | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | 0 | Collision |
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