Practice report

FIA F2 Abu Dhabi

F2 Abu Dhabi: Points leader Piastri sets the pace in practice

Oscar Piastri kicked off his quest to secure the FIA Formula 2 title in the best possible way by topping the times in practice at the partially re-profiled Yas Marina Circuit.

Tom Howard

Edited: Dec 10, 2021, 11:42 AM

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Oscar Piastri, Prema Racing

The championship leader surged to the top of the times in the final third of the 45 minute session, courtesy of a 1m36.800, set on the medium tyres.

It proved to be a hotly-contested session with only 0.035s separating the top three as rookie Jack Doohan emerged as Piastri’s closest rival.

Doohan managed to extract an effort 0.021s slower than Piastri in his MP Motorsport entry, while ART Grand Prix’s Christian Lundgaard was third-fastest.

Title contenders Robert Shwartzman and Guanyu Zhou clocked times good enough for ninth and 11th respectively.

F2 newcomer Clement Novalak was the first to set an indicative time around the revamped circuit, posting a 1m39.489s on the medium tyres.

The benchmark was soon eclipsed first by Jeddah podium finisher Ralph Boschung before Doohan, Marcus Armstrong and Juri Vips enjoyed spells at the top of the times.

Lundgaard lit up the timing screens with 30 minutes of the session remaining, surging to the top with a 1m37.770s. The Dane shaved a almost second from that effort becoming the first drivers into the 1m36s bracket.

Piastri emerged as his nearest rival before toppling Lundgaard as the session approached its final 15 minutes. The Australian set a new benchmark which was five thousandths of a second faster than Lundgaard.

Boschung sat third ahead of Vips, Doohan, Armstrong and Marino Sato.

Piastri managed to lap even fastest taking 0.030s off his time while countryman Doohan popped up into second spot as the clock ticked towards the final 10 minutes.

The times remained unchanged in the closing minutes of the session as Piastri emerged on top ahead of Doohan and Lundgaard.

Boschung ended the session in fourth fractionally ahead of Novalak while Vips posted the sixth-fastest time. The top 10 was completed by Armstrong, Bent Viscaal, Shwartzman and Marino Sato.

Practice ran largely without incident with Roy Nissany the closest to flirting with the circuit’s barriers.

The field will return for qualifying scheduled for 1830 local time 1530 GMT.

F2 Abu Dhabi - Practice results:

Cla # Driver Team Time Gap 1 2 Australia Oscar Piastri
Italy Prema Powerteam 1'36.800 2 11 Jack Doohan
Netherlands MP Motorsport 1'36.821 0.021 3 9 Denmark Christian Lundgaard
France ART Grand Prix 1'36.835 0.035 4 21 Switzerland Ralph Boschung
Spain Campos Racing 1'37.299 0.499 5 12 Clement Novalak
MP Motorsport 1'37.315 0.515 6 8 Estonia Jüri Vips
United Kingdom HitechGP 1'37.339 0.539 7 17 New Zealand Marcus Armstrong
France DAMS 1'37.416 0.616 8 24 Netherlands Bent Viscaal
Italy Trident 1'37.615 0.815 9 1 Russian Federation Robert Shwartzman
Italy Prema Powerteam 1'37.633 0.833 10 25 Japan Marino Sato
Italy Trident 1'37.701 0.901 11 3 China Guanyu Zhou
United Kingdom UNI-Virtuosi 1'37.738 0.938 12 5 Dan Ticktum
Carlin 1'37.817 1.017 13 10 France Theo Pourchaire
France ART Grand Prix 1'37.910 1.110 14 7 New Zealand Liam Lawson
HitechGP 1'37.915 1.115 15 4 Brazil Felipe Drugovich
UNI-Virtuosi 1'37.997 1.197 16 15 Brazil Guilherme Samaia
Czech Republic Charouz Racing System 1'38.101 1.301 17 16 Israel Roy Nissany
France DAMS 1'38.202 1.402 18 6 India Jehan Daruvala
United Kingdom Carlin 1'38.207 1.407 19 14 Netherlands Richard Verschoor
Charouz Racing System 1'38.387 1.587 20 20 Olli Caldwell
Spain Campos Racing 1'38.538 1.738 21 22 Jake Hughes
HWA Racelab 1'39.155 2.355 22 23 Italy Alessio Deledda
HWA Racelab 1'40.859 4.059 View full results

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