Oscar Piastri moved onto the brink of the 2021 F2 title after claiming pole position for the Abu Dhabi Feature Race.
Piastri blitzed Practice ahead of his fellow Australian, Jack Doohan as drivers adapted to a new layout around Yas Marina Circuit, with both drivers going on to secure a shock Australian one-two to lock out the front row for Sunday’s Feature Race.
Now here is a full roundup of Practice and Qualifying for the final round of the 2021 F2 season.
Practice
Several drivers opted for installation laps in the opening minutes as drivers slowly eased themselves into the session on a new track layout, which featured several alterations from when F2 last visited Yas Marina in 2019.
Marcus Armstrong proceeded to set the initial pace 14 minutes into the session but the lead changed hands between him, Christian Lundgaard and Doohan within the following three minutes, before Armstrong briefly regained the lead until Vips and Lundgaard went quicker.
Come the half-way point of the session, Lundgaard sat top with 1m 36.835 ahead of Piastri and Ralph Boschung.
Piastri and Doohan though were the only two drivers to post quicker times amongst front runners as Piastri went top from Lundgaard by 0.005 seconds on his tenth lap, before Doohan displaced him by 0.009s.
Piastri however found further time to top Practice with 1m 36.800 which was 0.021s quicker than Doohan, as Lundgaard finished a further 0.014s behind in third ahead of Boschung and Clement Novalak.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | 1m 36.800 |
| 2 | Jack Doohan | MP Motorsport | + 0.021 |
| 3 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | + 0.035 |
| 4 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | + 0.499 |
| 5 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | + 0.515 |
| 6 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | + 0.539 |
| 7 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | + 0.616 |
| 8 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | + 0.815 |
| 9 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | + 0.833 |
| 10 | Marino Sato | Trident | + 0.901 |
| 11 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | + 0.938 |
| 12 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | + 1.017 |
| 13 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | + 1.110 |
| 14 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | + 1.115 |
| 15 | Felipe Drugovich | UNI-Virtuosi | + 1.197 |
| 16 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | + 1.301 |
| 17 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | + 1.402 |
| 18 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | + 1.407 |
| 19 | Richard Verschoor | Charouz | + 1.587 |
| 20 | Olli Caldwell | Campos | + 1.738 |
| 21 | Jake Hughes | HWA Racelab | + 2.355 |
| 22 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | + 4.059 |
Qualifying
Roy Nissany led the field out for two warm-up laps but was overtaken by Juri Vips and Liam Lawson who proceeded to set the first benchmark times, which were swiftly usurped as Piastri set the pace following opening runs with 1m 36.044.
Piastri’s PREMA teammate, Robert Shwartzman was second quickest but 0.145s behind the Aussie but the pair found themselves split at the halfway mark by Boschung, as several cars found time on their second fliers with 0.384s separating the top three with Piastri top on 1m 35.379.
Charouz’s Guilherme Samaia surprisingly was the first driver to head out for the final runs with everyone else following suit, except for fifth-placed Doohan who was having a steering issue looked over but eventually got out on track soon afterwards.
Come the checkered flag, Piastri did enough to claim a fifth straight pole position with 1m 35.077 after initially being pipped by Zhou then Doohan, which meant that Piastri and Doohan form an all Australian front-row lockout for the Feature Race on Sunday.
Piastri now holds a 55.5 point lead over Shwartzman in the title race by collecting four points for pole position, which means that he can seal the title tomorrow in the opening Sprint Race, for which Carlin locks out the front row with Jehan Daruvala on reverse-pole from Dan Ticktum.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | 1m 35.077 |
| 2 | Jack Doohan | MP Motorsport | + 0.213 |
| 3 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | + 0.271 |
| 4 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | + 0.283 |
| 5 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | + 0.419 |
| 6 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | + 0.427 |
| 7 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | + 0.434 |
| 8 | Felipe Drugovich | UNI-Virtuosi | + 0.535 |
| 9 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | + 0.541 |
| 10 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | + 0.744 |
| 11 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | + 0.778 |
| 12 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | + 0.939 |
| 13 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | + 1.003 |
| 14 | Marino Sato | Trident | + 1.164 |
| 15 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | + 1.205 |
| 16 | Richard Verschoor | Charouz | + 1.216 |
| 17 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | + 1.235 |
| 18 | Jake Hughes | HWA Racelab | + 1.385 |
| 19 | Olli Caldwell | Campos | + 1.493 |
| 20 | Clement Novalak | MP Motorsport | + 1.645 |
| 21 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | + 1.664 |
| 22 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | + 3.580 |
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