It was happy hunting for 20-year-old Oscar Piastri around the streets of Monaco in round two of the FIA Formula 2 Championship. Keeping himself firmly in title contention, the Prema driver drove a clean and mature weekend to collect a solid haul of points and double Monaco podiums in changing conditions.

It was an early start on Thursday as the drivers took to the famous street circuit under blue skies. Piastri started well, running in the top five throughout a disturbed practice session. Later that afternoon the track temperature was rising and so was the pressure as qualifying commenced. The field was split into two groups and Piastri in Group A drove a tidy lap with a best time of 1:21.443 placing him P2 behind ART’s Theo Pourchaire. The young Frenchman was fastest across both groups which meant he claimed pole position with Piastri behind him in P3 on the clean side of the grid.

“I’m pretty happy with P3 in qualifying here at Monaco, a bit better than Bahrain, which is nice. The team did a really good job obviously with Robert on top in his group and me P2 in mine. The main aim of the weekend was to qualify at the front, and we are situated there. Now we just need to keep our nose clean, hopefully raking the points and… have fun!”

Starting P8 for the opening sprint race on Friday, Piastri initially lost a position to Pourchaire but kept in mind the long game for the weekend and stayed out of trouble. The rest of the pack were also cautious and polite, all too aware of how an incident could ruin their weekend. This led to a relatively unchanged order until Christian Lundgaard in second place retired with an engine issue, bringing Piastri back to P8. Later in the race Gianluca Petecof hit the wall at the swimming pool complex to bring out a late safety car on lap 25.

As the safety car peeled back into the pits there were three laps of racing left and Piastri had a great restart, putting the pressure onto Pourchaire and pulling out a gap of 1.3 seconds from Liam Lawson. But with limited time and opportunities to make a move the race settled down and Piastri crossed the line P8.

“We scored P8 which was pretty much the goal we chased for this race, staying in the top-10 and secure a good starting position for race 2. It wasn’t the most eventful of races from my point of view but I’m pretty happy with that.”

It was a very early start for the teams on Saturday and they were greeted by a much cooler and damp track after rain in the early hours. Piastri lined up P3 but a space opened up ahead of him after Marcus Armstrong’s DAMS car failed to make it to the grid to take its P1 slot. Piastri seized the opportunity and with a great launch off the line had a clear run down to the first turn to beat Lawson into the lead of the race. However, the young Kiwi was hot on Piastri’s gearbox and on lap five dived down the inside of the chicane on the exit of the tunnel, forcing Piastri to go straight. This was followed by a move on the inside of Rascasse which saw Lawson take the position, the Prema driver leaving him space to avoid a costly collision.

Piastri put in fastest lap on lap eight but the Carlin of Dan Ticktum was closing in to challenge for P2. Piastri again defended well, holding onto tyres that were clearly past their use-by date. This came to a head on lap 15 when Ticktum pulled a similar move to Lawson down the inside of the tunnel exit chicane and was through.

Piastri continued to drive well, holding off Pourchaire and Juri Vips who were closing in. A late safety car came out for a collision between David Beckmann and Bent Viscaal, pushing the race to the time limit and two racing laps as the green flag came out. Another challenge came from Vips but Piastri held onto P3, his battling drive giving him a well-earned Monaco podium. This later became P2 after race winner Lawson was disqualified due to a technical non-conformity.

“P3 is a good result. We got to the lead early on, but we just struggled for grip throughout the race, and I think that P3 was the maximum we could have done. I tried to defend for the lead a bit, but it was inevitable that we were going to be overtaken. We got a few points, a trophy at Monaco which is always cool, now we’re getting ready for the feature race, and hopefully, we can get another trophy.”

There wasn’t long to wait before the feature race was upon us, greeted by an overcast sky and the clouds hanging over the nearby hills. Lining up P3, Piastri went well off the line, surviving the first corner and maintaining position. By lap 20 Ticktum was closing in with Vips tucked in behind but Piastri defended well leaving no opportunities for the Carlin driver. Lap 27 and Ticktum went into the pits for the soft tyre and attempted the undercut. Prema followed suit on the following lap, bringing in Piastri for a sharp pit-stop which got him out ahead of Ticktum. The leading pair then came in for soft tyres, led by Robert Schwartzman who had a slow stop with the rear left tyre, pushing him down the order and elevating his Prema team-mate to P2.

On lap 31 there were a flurry of Virtual Safety Cars for incidents at Rascasse. This kept the battle between Piastri and Ticktum locked and as the second VSC ended on lap 34 the fight was back on. Defending hard, Piastri locked up at the swimming pool chicane but held his position. Ticktum, now right on the Prema car’s gearbox, seized the chance and went to the outside of Rascasse. The Alpine Academy driver held his nerve and the Carlin driver ran out of road, hitting the barriers. Piastri completed another brilliant drive to see the chequered flag for P2 and another podium for him and his Prema team.

“We had a very solid run with P2 in the feature race. I think we maximized pretty much everything we could this weekend. I’m very happy with the progress. In the feature race we had a good strategy and a good pitstop and it’s been great to go racing again and have another good weekend.”

With points-scoring finishes in all three races in Monaco, Piastri has now moved into second place in the championship behind fellow Alpine Academy driver Guanyu Zhou. The FIA F2 action returns in Baku in two weeks’ time for round three on June 04-06.

Images © Prema Powerteam