Oscar Piastri has had to wait just two races before getting his first win the FIA Formula 2 Championship after what was a sensational result for the Australian.
Having finished the championship’s first race of the Bahrain Grand Prix round in fifth place, the Victorian started the second in P6 and just behind Prema racing teammate Robert Shwartzman.
It was a frantic start, as multiple cars collided on the first corner, but Piastri did his best to avoid the drama and made it through unscathed.
Throughout the middle part of the 23-lap sprint race, the rookie was locked in a battle for sixth place, but eventually lost out to Armstrong on the 14th lap.
When fellow F2 debutant Liam Lawson was spun by Piastri’s Alpine Academy teammate Christian Lundgaard just one lap later, it saw the safety car deployed, Prema taking the opportunity to pit and change the 19-year-old’s tyres.
Despite being eighth at the end of the safety car period, it took Piastri only one corner to move up two places after a brilliant move at turn one and not long after the restart, the Italian based team's decision to bring Piastri in looked to pay
dividends as his pace was far greater than most of the drivers ahead.
Click here to watch the race highlights.
A late virtual safety car didn’t deter Piastri as he continued to move through the field, recording the fastest lap on multiple occasions, before eventually passing race leader and another one of his Alpine teammates in Guanyu Zhou at the start
of the final lap.
From that moment, a brilliant Piastri held onto his lead to cross the finish line almost one second ahead of Lundgaard and Zhou
“The second race in Bahrain and it was a crazy one,” Piastri said after the race.
“We came out on top, so I want to give a massive thanks to Prema. It was the right strategy call from the team to go onto softs.
“I am just riding the high at the minute, second race, first win. We struggled a bit at the beginning, but I couldn’t be happier with the result and we will go again tomorrow.”
Thanks to his six points collected in race one, Piastri now leads the championship standings by one point over Jehan Daruvala ahead of the round’s feature race, which takes place at 1.50pm local time, or 9.50pm AEDT tonight.
Earlier on Saturday, Formula 1 star and Motorsport Australia ambassador Daniel Ricciardo enjoyed a bright start to life at McLaren, qualifying for tomorrow morning’s Bahrain Grand Prix in P6 – one place ahead of teammate Lando Norris.