Oscar Piastri Bows Out Of F2 With Victory At 2021 Abu Dhabi Feature Race

2021 F2 champion, Oscar Piastri bowed out of the series with victory at the season-closing Abu Dhabi Feature Race.

Piastri led from pole position as Zhou snatched second from Jack Doohan through Turn Nine with Doohan immediately spinning out, which triggered the only Safety Car of this race in a hectic opening lap as Robert Shwartzman improved to third.

Piastri and Zhou both made their pit stops on Lap 10 which relinquished the lead to Theo Pourchaire and Felipe Drugovich, who were racing on the alternate strategy.

Pourchaire and Drugovich eventually conceded the lead when they made their stops on Laps 28 and 29 respectively, which enabled Piastri to sprint away to a sixth F2 victory ahead of Zhou as Drugovich finished third ahead of Pourchaire and Shwartzman.

Dan Ticktum, Marcus Armstrong, Juri Vips, Ralph Boschung and Richard Verschoor rounded out the top ten.

With Piastri already confirmed as champion, Shwartzman completed a PREMA one-two championship finish albeit 60.5 points behind as he is declared Vice-Champion ahead of Zhou by nine points.

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At lights out, Piastri led Doohan who found himself scrapping with Zhou but ran wide through Turn Nine and re-joined unfortunately out of control on dirty marbles, which sent the Aussie spinning out across the track into Turn 10 to trigger a Safety Car.

Further back, Christian Lundgaard’s final F2 race ahead of his switch to IndyCar ended in disappointment as he found himself spun by Vips at Turn Six, although the Dane did recover to finish 15th at the checkered flag.

The race resumed on Lap Five as Piastri led Zhou and Shwartzman as Lawson was the first driver on the super-soft tyres to pit at end of Lap Six, with several other drivers following suit across the following laps as Piastri and Zhou stopped together at end of Lap Nine.

Pourchaire and Drugovich who were the highest-placed medium tyre runners consequently were unleashed into the lead as they scrapped for position, with Pourchaire ultimately fending Drugovich off until Lap 28 when he made his stop.

Piastri meanwhile focused on managing his medium tyres as he slowly clawed his way up the order albeit with assistance of drivers on alternate strategy pitting, which proved enough to reclaim the lead on Lap 29 as Drugovich made his stop.

Drugovich meanwhile initially overcut Pourchaire in his pit stop and re-joined in fourth, but the Frenchman took advantage of his warmer super-softs to pass the Brazilian into Turn Six.

Pourchaire however was demoted to fifth two laps later on the exit of Turn Five but both drivers were able to clear Shwartzman on the penultimate lap, although Shwartzman did enough with fifth to secure the Vice-Champion honour.

Piastri with his sixth and final F2 victory will now join Alpine as their F1 Reserve Driver whilst Shwartzman’s 2022 plans remain uncertain, as Zhou graduates to F1 with Alfa Romeo and Dan Ticktum who finished fourth in the championship heads to Formula E.

Pourchaire rounded out the top five drivers in the Championship and is currently set to return to F2 next season as the highest-returning driver.

Position	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Oscar Piastri	PREMA	33	58m 14.400
2	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	33	+ 3.288
3	Felipe Drugovich	UNI-Virtuosi	33	+ 8.242
4	Theo Pourchaire	ART GP	33	+ 9.977
5	Robert Shwartzman	PREMA	33	+ 13.333
6	Dan Ticktum	Carlin	33	+ 19.166
7	Marcus Armstrong	DAMS	33	+ 19.775
8	Juri Vips	Hitech GP	33	+ 22.555
9	Ralph Boschung	Campos	33	+ 26.415
10	Richard Verschoor	Charouz	33	+ 27.242
11	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	33	+ 30.007
12	Bent Viscaal	Trident	33	+ 32.619
13	Roy Nissany	DAMS	33	+ 37.305
14	Clement Novalak	MP Motorsport	33	+ 37.836
15	Christian Lundgaard	ART GP	33	+ 40.446
16	Guilherme Samaia	Charouz	33	+ 41.040
17	Marino Sato	Trident	33	+ 42.341
18	Olli Caldwell	Campos	33	+ 43.846
19	Alessio Deledda	HWA Racelab	33	+ 1m 20.339
RET	Liam Lawson	Hitech GP	29	Mechanical
RET	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	21	Mechanical
RET	Jack Doohan	MP Motorsport	0	Collision