We have a new championship leader in Formula 2: Oscar Piastri took over the reigns from Guanyu Zhou in a solid weekend at Silverstone. But while it was a good showing from the Aussie, he wasn’t completely satisfied.

By Floris Visman

Before Silverstone came around, Oscar Piastri already had his maiden win, back at Bahrain. He also set a fastest lap with his Prema in Baku so only one thing was missing on his score card: a pole position. He got that one in Silverstone and even better, he did it by edging out his title rival Guanyu Zhou and bagged the four points for pole.

Pole meant he had to start Sprint Race 1 from 10th though, but he made his way up to 6th. Piastri: “In Race 1 I had a quick start and made up a few spots straight away, and then got past (Liam) Lawson to take P6. After that, we were just stuck in a DRS train and I couldn’t really make any more progress forward.”

With rival Zhou retiring from race 1 and having to start from the back in Race 2, Piastri had a great advantage starting from 5th. “In Race 2, I had a pretty average start but made a good move towards the end to take P4. The pace was mega in clean air so I could set the fastest lap in both races. I don’t think there was really much more we could have done today.”

The Feature race should have been his moment to shine. Starting from pole he had all the chance in the world to extend his championship lead, but it was not to be. Zhou overtook him and went on to win the race, Piastri himself ended up third after being stuck behind the long running Matteo Nannini for the majority of the race.

“We got P3 in the feature race, which was a difficult one”, Piastri said. “Unfortunately, we just didn’t have the same pace that we had yesterday. When we caught Nannini in the middle of the race, we didn’t have the pace to pass him, which was surprising and rather disappointing. Even after that, the final laps put my defensive skills to test. We still scored solid points, walked away with another trophy and the championship lead, so overall it has been a great weekend. Not the way we wanted to end it, but we showed well what we are truly capable of, and I want to thank the team for all their work.”

The next Formula 2 round at Monza is September 11.

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