2021 Formula 2 Championship, round 1, race 1: Jehan Daruvala shows his strength at Sakhir

In the qualifiers on Friday, Jehan Daruvala managed to take P7, ahead of reigning Formula 3 champion Oscar Piastri, with Liam Lawson in P9.

Hitech Grand Prix’s Liam Lawson drove like a seasoned pro on his Formula 2 debut, brushing off a stern challenge from second-year Jehan Daruvala to take the opening win of the season in Sprint Race 1 at Sakhir. In the qualifiers on Friday, Jehan Daruvala managed to take P7, ahead of reigning Formula 3 champion Oscar Piastri, with Liam Lawson in P9. UNI-Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou, who will begin Sunday’s feature race on pole, got his weekend off to a solid start, rising to P7, ahead of Dan Ticktum. In a post sprint race briefing, Jehan Daruvala said, “It's never going to be easy, to win in Formula 2 but when I was coming behind Liam with ten laps to go, I thought that if I keep at this pace then I'd probably get him at the end. To be fair to him, he did a very good job I tried to use my experience from last year on tyre management but he managed everything as well as he could. He didn't make mistakes and I ran out of tyres towards the end as well, but I gave it everything and I pushed for the win and I'm still happy with second.” In the first sprint race of the season, Daruvala’s experience was beginning to show. The Carlin racer’s tyres were in better shape than Lawson’s and he had eaten into the gap between the two of them. With two laps to go, Lawson was just about clinging on. Their battle continued into the final lap, but Daruvala just couldn’t find any way past and crossed the line in second.