It was a weekend of highs and lows for 20-year-old Oscar Piastri on the streets of Baku, Azerbaijan in round three of the FIA Formula 2 Championship. Despite the bumps in the road, the Australian Prema driver managed to not only keep his championship hopes firmly on track but also brought himself closer to the top of the standings.

The drivers and teams were greeted to the 6.003km street circuit by blue skies and warm temperatures, with a track temperature of 35 degrees and air of 25 degrees. Having not raced at the track before, the young driver from Melbourne soon got to grips in the practice session, topping the timesheets within a handful of laps and finishing the session P5 just two hundredths behind his Prema teammate Robert Shwartzman. Qualifying followed later that afternoon and the track temperature had now soared to 52 degrees. Piastri had a tough opening run but he managed to put together a brilliant performance in the second half of the session, claiming third place.

“We got P3 in qualifying, another good session. I didn’t have an ideal first run, I made a mistake in the first push and then it was a messy run for everyone. I had to regroup after that. Then we had a good second run, we made a change to the car in the middle, and it was much better. I think my laps were pretty good, they were both very similar lap timewise. Happy with P3, doesn’t mean quite much as it did in Monaco, but it’s always nice to be starting at the pointy end. I’m looking forward to the races.”

As the sun beat down on another hot day, Piastri starting eighth saw pressure from the Hitechs of Juri Vips and Liam Lawson off the line. As Vips got through into turn one, Lawson went for a move around the outside of turn two. Whilst defending the line Piastri got hit from behind by the Uni-Virtuosi of Felipe Drugovich which catapulted him into Lawson. Lawson, in the wall, was out the race and once it became clear that there was too much damage to the Prema car Oscar soon followed suit and retired. A frustrating race but eyes were already on a comeback.

“It was a very short race. I was hit from behind into turn 2. I got pushed into another car, had a puncture and broke my front wing. With the number of tyres we get for the weekend, there was no point in trying to salvage anything. I will start from the back, it’s time for a comeback!”

As the sun set on an already eventful day, the cooling track was ready for the second sprint race of the day and the 100th race of the modern Formula 2 era. After a frustrating race 1, Piastri started P19 and avoided the melee at turn one. Lawson who had started 20th managed to get past and both then made short work of the Trident of Marino Sato, placing Piastri P15 before the safety car came out for the first lap incidents.

When the race went back to green, Piastri continued to make strong progress, passing the Charouz of Guilherme Samaia and the Campos of Matteo Nannini on lap four while a damaged ART of Theo Pourchaire brought the Alpine Academy driver up to P12. Lap six and Piastri faced a challenge from Ticktum, the Carlin driver getting by on the main straight shortly before the safety car re-emerged after Roy Nissany and Richard Vershoor made contact.

No sooner had the race resumed, a Virtual Safety Car was required after Christian Lundgaard was spun by a three-into-one melee with Drugovich and Lawson, while Marcus Armstrong ended up in the wall further round the track. When the VSC ended on lap nine Piastri was up to P9 and chasing down Drugovich. With his car working particularly well in this phase of the race, Piastri got by the Brazilian along the long main straight on lap 12 and posted the fastest lap. Ahead of him Lawson began to slow with an apparent loss of power and Piastri claimed another spot and started to chase down Ticktum. But Lawson soon regained power and battled back for position. It was hard and fair defending from Piasrti but Lawson got the job done.

The race began to settle and Piastri posted another fastest lap of 1:56.020, crossing the line in eighth place and picking up valuable points for his championship tally.

“We got a decent result starting from 19th and the fastest lap, so we added two nice bonus points. We struggled a bit at the beginning with getting references and stuff, I think we paid the price a little bit for only doing three corners in the first race. I was getting to grips with everything in the first half of the race. In the middle of the race, we were quite good but at the end we didn’t quite have the pace compared to Ticktum and Lawson. I’m happy with the race, could have been a little better but we’re in a good position for tomorrow. We know what to change and what to work on. Hopefully we can bring home good points.”

Sunday was even cooler than the previous race with the changing conditions replacing blue skies with an overcast sky. Piastri started the feature race where he qualified on Friday in P3 and after a delayed start was ready to bring home a good haul of points.

Piastri got off the line well with the Hitechs up ahead battling for the lead. Lawson had lost out to Vips and then cut across to heavily defend against Pourchaire. Piastri took this opportunity to dive round the outside of Lawson into turn two. The brave move developed into a battle for P2 through the next few corners before Piastri claimed the position. Closely behind, Ticktum, Pourchaire and Armstrong tangled, with Armstrong ending in the wall again and Pourchaire forced to retire with damage.

This brought out a short safety car period and as it peeled back into the pits it was Lawson hot on the back of Piastri. The Hitech used the speed from the main straight to make a move on the Prema driver into turn one. The young Australian held out and defended well but Lawson made the cut back before the next corner and was through for second. However, this proved short lived as Lawson was handed a 10 second penalty for his earlier defensive move on Pourchaire which he would take at his mandatory pitstop.

Lap 6 and Vips was in to replace his super-soft tyres for the mediums. This triggered a spate of pit-stops with Lawson in to serve his penalty on lap 8, followed by Piastri. The pit-stop initially did the job as the Prema driver managed to jump the Hitech of Vips for the lead but the quicker car of Vips was back past on the main straight on the following lap. Shortly afterwards came the news that the Prema driver was under investigation for an unsafe pit release into the path of Drugovich and a five second penalty was subsequently awarded.

At this stage the Australian was 7.3 seconds ahead of his Prema teammate on lap 14. By lap 16 Piastri was lighting up the time screens putting in fastest sectors. This extended the gap back to Shwartzman and closed the gap to Vips who had come across the backmarker of Alessio Deledda. The pressure on Vips continued as well as alleviating the pressure from the penalty as the Alpine Academy driver was now a comfortable 10 seconds up the road from Shwartzman on lap 25. The Prema driver continued to show his speed and crossed the line just behind Vips to bring home second and another F2 podium.

“P2 in the feature race, I’m happy with that. I think we didn’t quite have the pace to match Juri today, but we got good points, another trophy. We have been a bit lucky with the 5-second penalty, not doing anything in the end. I think the pace was strong, another solid weekend in terms of what we could control. I’m happy with how it went and now we will enjoy the break before Silverstone.”

Piastri’s razor-sharp moves and ability to stay out of trouble while maximising on the events of the race weekend meant that, despite the disappointment of race 1, the Alpine Academy driver has cut his deficit to the top of the championship to just five points. The Australian has also helped his Prema team go ahead in the teams’ championship.

The teams and drivers now have a break before the FIA F2 action returns for round 4 at Silverstone on July 16-18.

Images © Prema Powerteam