The questions about the new format in Formula 2 were put to rest after an outstanding weekend of racing in Bahrain saw two rookies take victories.
The new format sees less weekends in the season but added an extra sprint race to each weekend to try and minimise the high increase of cost of F2 over the past few years.
Dream start for debutant Liam Lawson
The two Saturday Sprint races saw two last lap battles for the win. The first Sprint race, in the morning, saw rookie Liam Lawson jump from third to first on the start and never look back.
Jehan Daruvala, a fellow Red Bull academy driver, fought his way through the top half of the field to reach Lawson by lap 15 and the two battled it out for the remaining eight laps. The top two were the class of the field as they were nearly nine seconds up on third place David Beckmann.
Lawson managed to hold off Daruvala at the final corner to win his first F2 race in his debut race.
Guanyu Zhou also enjoys victory on debut
Sprint Race 2, in the evening, saw the top 10 finishers in the first race in reverse to start the race. But it was reigning Formula 3 champion Oscar Piastri who became the second rookie winner in as many races.
Piastri completed a super last-lap overtake on Guanyu Zhou in an epic three-lap battle that included Christian Lundgaard and pole-sitter Juri Vips.
Vips’ car seemed to stop for a few seconds – leaving Zhou, Piastri and Lundgaard to fight it out. On the 23rd and final lap, Piastri overtook Zhou at Turn One and Lundgaard took advantage of that and overtook Zhou going into Turn Four. Piastri, who was super quick all race, stayed ahead and took his maiden victory.
Zhou enjoys back-to-back victories at the Bahrain GP
The feature race on Sunday kept up the dramatic events of Saturday. Zhou took his second victory in F2 ahead of Dan Ticktum and Lawson.
The grid, which was decided by a qualifying session on Friday, had different strategies at the top. Zhou (first) and British driver Ticktum (fourth) started on the slower, but longer lasting hard tyres whereas Lundgaard (second) and Felipe Drugovich (third) started on the faster, short lifespan, soft tyres.
Lungaard took first on the opening lap and for the next 15 laps the positions kept changing. Chaos ensued on lap 16 after Gianluca Petecof had to pull over at T1 and exit the race after the cars fire extinguisher went off.
A fire extinguisher is what this race needed from then on because it was absolutely pandemonium. Piastri and Lawson pitted before a Virtual Safety Car came out for the Petecof incident. Under F2 rules, cars are not allowed to pit under the VSC, but since they pitted before, it was allowed.
The VSC came out as Piastri was leaving the pitlane, which slowed Lundgaard down and allowed Piastri to stay ahead of him. In the end a full Safety Car was required, shaking up the order. It allowed Marcus Armstrong to pit for new tyres and come out in first, leading Piastri and Richard Verschoor.
Verschoor was desperately trying to defend the lead from Zhou, but Zhou used all of his experience to take the better track position and drag himself in front.
The Dutchman’s attention switched straight to the Piastri in third, but thankfully for him, the Australian was busy defending from Ticktum. Their battle came to a heart-breaking conclusion, with the two coming together at Turn Two, spinning Piastri off the road and out of the race. Ticktum got away unscathed and a VSC brought the drama to a stop.
Racing resumed with two laps to go and Ticktum jumped Verschoor, who also lost third to Lawson and fell off the podium. Meanwhile, Zhou kept it calm out in front to run home as the winner.
By Charlie Parker
