Piastri quickest in F2 qualifying in Abu Dhabi, Daruvala on reverse-grid pole

Alpine Academy driver Oscar Piastri claimed his fifth pole position in a row during FIA Formula 2 in Abu Dhabi.

The Australian carried on with the pace from the practice session earlier on to take another step closer to the title, with his rival Robert Shwartzman only managing fourth fastest.

Piastri set the early pace on the first flying laps, with the Australian pilot 0.145 seconds faster than PREMA team-mate Shwartzman. Jehan Daruvala was third prior to the field did cool down laps before going again on their sets of super-soft tyres.

Piastri continued to go quicker with a 1:35.379, wihch was more than six tenths than what he had set beforehand. Ralph Boschung improved to second and 0.371 seconds off the pace ahead of Shwartzman in third.

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The final runs begun with 12 minutes to go and Piastri still kept on hammering down the lap times. A new benchmark came with four minutes remaining, 0.059 seconds clear of his Russian counterpart, pushing Boschung down to third.

At the end of qualifying, Piastri set a new pole position time of 1:35.077, accumulating four championship points, extending his lead at the top over Shwartzman to 55.5 points with only 61 left on the table.

Jack in only his second F2 weekend will line up on the front row next to his compatriot for Sunday’s Feature Race ahead of Guanyu Zhou and Shwartzman on the second row.

Boschung qualified fifth in front of Pourchaire, Liam Lawson and Felipe Drugovich. With the top ten being reversed for Sprint Race 1 on Saturday, Jehan Daruvala will lead Dan Ticktum to an all-Carlin reverse-grid front row.

The permutations for the championship is that if Piastri scores at least six points in the first Sprint Race, regardless of where Shwartzman finishes, he will be crowned champion with two races to spare.

Sprint Race 1 begins at 12:20 track time on Saturday.