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Liam Lawson showed impressive pace in damp conditions to win the second Formula 2 sprint race in Monaco.
Lawson was the lead car on the grid after Marcus Armstrong suffered a technical issue on his way to pole position and was forced to start from the pit lane.
Lawson relinquished the lead to Oscar Piastri, who took an early lead in the lead Prema.
Piastri struggled to get to grips with the wet track and it was immediately apparent the reigning F3 champion didn’t have the pace to maintain the lead.
The Hitech driver made his move on Lap 5 - first, a late lunge into the Nouvelle Chicane, but both drivers were forced to cut the corner, allowing Piastri to remain ahead.
Liam Lawson kept the pressure on Championship leader Guanyu Zhou with a second win of the season in Sprint Race 2 at Monte Carlo, the Hitech Grand Prix racer recovered from a tricky start to win out over Carlin’s Dan Ticktum and PREMA Racing’s Oscar Piastri.
Jumped by Piastri off the line, Lawson marshalled the wet conditions expertly, reclaiming the lead five laps in and controlling the rest of the race.
Piastri dropped down to third behind Ticktum, with the two-time Macau Grand Prix winner utilizing his street-race experience to pick off the PREMA and hunt down the Hitech. But Lawson refused to surrender, keeping the Briton at bay during a tumultuous middle part of the race, before going on to finish 8s ahead.
2021 Formula 2 Championship, round 2: Jehan Daruvala struggles in Monaco, starts from P11 in feature race
In Sprint Race 1, Daruvala was on for reverse grid pole until the final lap where he got hit twice and got barged out of the way.
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Ahead of the feature race, Jehan Daruvala dropped to P5 from P3 in overall rankings.
HIGHLIGHTS
As is standard for Monte Carlo, the qualifiers were split into two groups of 16 minutes each.
Daruvala’s team mate, Dan Ticktum who was part of Group B qualified on P4.
Daruvala could manage P6 in his group qualifiers, but settled for 11th best time overall.
Theo Pourchaire converted pole position into a dominant Formula 2 feature race victory in Monaco.
Pourchaire’s victory in the principality makes him the youngest-ever race winner in the series’ history at just 17.
The Frenchman maintained the lead into Turn 1 ahead of Prema’s Robert Shwartzman and never looked back from that moment onwards.
Pourchaire stopped a lap later than Shwartzman - who suffered a slow stop - on Lap 30, to maintain the net lead, as Guanyu Zhou opted for a long first stint.
As Pourchaire ran away at the front, it was a battle between the Premas and Dan Ticktum for the other two spots on the podium.
FEATURE RACE: Pourchaire becomes F2 s youngest-ever race-winner with inspired performance in Monte Carlo fiaformula2.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from fiaformula2.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.