F2: Piastri takes maiden pole at Silverstone as Shwartzman crash brings out red flag

Oscar Piastri became Formula 2’s fourth different polesitter in as many rounds with a dominant performance at Silverstone. The Alpine junior set the fastest lap of the session early on ahead of Guanyu Zhou, before a Robert Shwartzman crash brought out a red flag and ended qualifying prematurely.

Piastri – who lives in nearby Oxford – was more than half a second faster than Dan Ticktum at the end of the first runs, eking enough out of his medium Pirellis for two flying laps around Silverstone, when many only managed one.

Despite switching to fresh tyres for the second half of the session, no one could match the PREMA racer’s time of 1m 39.854s. Championship leader and fellow Alpine Academy driver Zhou came closest, crossing the line just moments before the session-ending red flag caused by a crash for Shzwartzman, to leap from 10th to second, 0.221s off Piastri.

Like Zhou, Richard Verschoor also managed to beat the red flag and nabbed himself his first top-three spot in F2, lapping at 1m 40.259s to drop Ticktum down to fourth.

Finishing 10th overall, Alpine prodigy Christian Lundgaard will start ahead of Red Bull junior Juri Vips in Saturday’s reverse grid Sprint Race 1, which takes place at 0850 local time.

Qualifying set the grid for Sunday morning's Feature Race that takes place at 1050 local time, while the grid for Race 2 at 1445 on Saturday will be set by reversing the top 10 finishers of Sprint Race 1.

For more on F2, visit the official series website.