Oscar Piastri moved one step closer to claiming his third title in three years as he won a thrilling second sprint race at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit on Saturday.
The Australian battled hard with Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala for much of the race, with the decisive move with three laps remaining to take the win on the track having momentarily taken the lead a few laps earlier before being repassed by the Indian driver.
Piastri hadn’t needed to make the move as Daruvala already had a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage hanging over him, and that would come to bite him as the race ended behind the safety car and left him well outside the points as a result.
In total, there were three safety car interruptions, with the first of those coming on the opening lap as four cars crashed out at turn one, including race one winner Marcus Armstrong.
Clément Novalak, racing in Formula 2 for the first time in Saudi Arabia with MP Motorsport, locked up heading into turn one and wiped out Armstrong, while Liam Lawson was lucky to escape with just a tap from his fellow New Zealander as he spun around.
Unfortunately, the carnage was far from over as Guilherme Samaia took avoiding action around Ralph Boschung and collected Alessio Deledda, eliminating both drivers from the race. It meant Samaia completed a total of five corners in the two sprint races in Jeddah.
The race resumed with Daruvala leading Piastri, while Christian Lundgaard and Bent Viscaal ran third and fourth, but racing was to be brought to a halt again with another safety car as Jüri Vips made contact with Felipe Drugovich as the two battled towards turn one.
Vips’ front wing got lodged underneath his Hitech Grand Prix machine and he was forced to stop on track at the exit of turn two, and the safety car was needed to remove his stricken car from the track. A few moments later, Logan Sargeant, also on his debut Formula 2 weekend with HWA Racelab, stopped on track at turn eight.
Daruvala was handed a five-second penalty after running deep at turn one on the restart on lap eight, with the stewards feeling the Indian had gained an advantage by running through the run off as he battled with Piastri for the lead.
A similar move by Lundgaard on Viscaal also earned the ART Grand Prix driver the same penalty, and both he and Daruvala would pay for it when the chequered flag fell.
A five car battle for the lead saw Daruvala fighting with Piastri, Lundgaard, Viscaal and Robert Shwartzman, and with six laps remaining, Piastri dived inside Daruvala into the final corner. However, the Indian driver then had DRS for the following straight and was able to repass the Australian into turn one.
Piastri made the final move three laps from the end to claim the win, with the race then finding itself finishing behind the safety car as Lawson hit the barriers heavily at turn thirteen. This meant that despite finishing second and third, Daruvala and Lundgaard would fail to score points.
Viscaal would inherit second for Trident’s best result of the season ahead of Shwartzman, while Dan Ticktum claimed fourth for Carlin ahead of the impressive Jack Doohan, who ended fifth for MP Motorsport in only his second start in Formula 2.
Another impressive drive came from ART Grand Prix’s Théo Pourchaire, who climbed from the back of the grid following his race one crash to take sixth ahead of Charouz Racing System’s Enzo Fittipaldi and UNI-Virtuosi Racing’s Guanyu Zhou.
Piastri’s victory edges the Prema Racing driver closer to the title as Zhou could only manage a single point in eighth, and with the Australian also starting Sunday’s Feature race from pole position, it could be decided with one round of the season remaining.
