2021 Formula 2 Championship, round 1, race 2: Jehan Daruvala settles for P4 at Sakhir

Red Bull junior Jehan Daruvala just missed out on the second podium of round 1, taking fourth.

Reigning Formula 3 champion Oscar Piastri became the second rookie winner in as many races this season, completing a superb last-lap overtake on UNI-Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou, to win a frenetic sprint race 2 in Sakhir. Red Bull junior Jehan Daruvala just missed out on the second podium of round 1, taking fourth. For a brief moment, Daruvala made it to the podium after confusion clouded over Christian Lundgaard’s 10-second penalty for a collision with Lirim Zendeli in lap 13, which took Daruvala back to P3. However, race officials later cleared the Dane and reinstated his P2. Piastri now leads the Drivers’ Championship with 21 points, while Daruvala is one point behind in second. Lundgaard and Zhou are tied for third on 16 points, with Lawson in fifth. PREMA lead the Teams’ standings on 29 points, ahead of Carlin on 21 and ART on 20. It initially looked as though Zhou was set to pull off his second win in Formula 2, after boldly starting on softs, before two late safety cars turned the race on its head and allowed a number of the field to switch to soft Pirellis. Zhou was then left to struggle to the line on heavily degraded tyres, just about holding on to P3. Piastri and Lundgaard were amongst those to change rubber, taking advantage of a late problem for Juri Vips, who dropped out of contention.