PREMA Racing storms to feature race pole with Oscar Piastri
Oscar Piastri put together a brilliant lap to take pole in the British round of the FIA Formula 2 Championship at Silverstone. The 20-year-old Australian was quick from the word go, immediately topping the field with his first set of new tyres. Actually, although he did not improve with the second set, his initial lap time stood on top for the rest of the session as a red flag curtailed the running with just over two minutes to go.
Unfortunately, the interruption came due to a spin by teammate Robert Shwartzman, who ended up in the gravel at Stowe. While the incident prevented the Russian from improving his position, his best lap at that time was enough to secure P7 and a second-row starting spot for race 1, which will provide him with a nice chance to score points.
Piastri will face a challenging run in tomorrow’s first reverse-grid race, starting from row 5 in P10.
#1 ROBERT SHWARTZMAN
“It has been an up-and-down qualifying session. We definitely improved the pace from free practice, and the car seemed really good, but I’m disappointed with the result because P3 or P4 was doable. The first stint was not bad despite a couple of small mistakes. Then when I was in lap 2 of the second stint, and I was two tenths faster already, I lost the rear and spun, which ended our session. It was unpredictable, maybe due to the wind or to the tyres losing grip. We have to look into the data and prepare for the races. It will be tough to manage degradation, so we need to do a good job.”
Qualifying: P7
Fastest Lap: 1:40.452
#2 OSCAR PIASTRI
“Pole in Silverstone! It’s been a while since my last one, but I’m super happy. I think we had the pace all day today, we were really strong in practice as well as in qualy obviously. I’m glad that my first run was good enough because I made a big mistake with the second set of tyres. Now we have to fight back from P10 in race 1, but we’re on pole for the feature race, which is what we’re here for.”
Qualifing: P1
Fastest Lap: 1:39.854