Jehan Daruvala dominated Sprint Race 2 in FIA Formula 2 to win his first race of the season at Monza.
The Indian driver began the race from second on the grid but got the jump on reverse-grid pole sitter David Beckmann at the start and was untroubled since.
Whilst the Red Bull Junior driver cleared away at the front, Christian Lundgaard was punted round at the Della Roggia chicane on the opening lap and fell to the back of the field.
Another incident occurred at the same corner a couple of laps later, as Jake Hughes tried for a move on his HWA Racelab team-mate Alessio Deledda but spun into the gravel and never recovered.
The Virtual Safety Car was deployed with Daruvala leading Beckmann, Bent Viscaal, Juri Vips, Liam Lawson, Robert Shwartzman, Theo Pourchaire, Oscar Piastri, Guanyu Zhou and Ralph Boschung by this point.
Three laps after the VSC had ended, Shwartzman passed Lawson for fifth position into the Rettifilo chicane.
The Russian continued his pursuit by closing in and subsequently overtaking Vips around the outside at the Della Roggia chicane to move up to fourth on Lap 11.
Vips allowed his Hitech team-mate Lawson through into fifth at Ascari on the same tour.
Further behind, Piastri dived to the inside of Pourchaire at the Rettifilo chicane on Lap 14 to elevate himself up to seventh.
Three laps later and Pourchaire could not keep hold of the final point, as he locked up into the same complex and allowed Piastri’s championship rival Zhou through into eighth.
At the front, Beckmann made the same mistake with three laps to go, which gave the advantage to Viscaal to go up to second place.
The German’s lock up saw him struggle on his tyres in the remainder of the event, thus presented opportunities for Shwartzman and Lawson to head past and up to fourth and fifth on the pemultimate lap.
With a six-second margin, Daruvala took the chequered flag for his second F2 win, with Viscaal and Shwartzman completing the podium.
Lawson was fourth ahead of Beckmann in fifth and Vips in sixth.
Piastri was seventh and picked up the bonus points for setting the fastest lap and Zhou took the final point in eighth.
The Australian has extended his lead over the Chinese driver to eight points, while Shwartzman’s podium has seen him close in to within 19 points of the championship leader.
The final race of the weekend sees Piastri on pole position ahead of Sprint Race 2 winner Daruvala in second and Zhou in third.
The Feature Race commences on Sunday morning at 10:25 track time.
