Monaco F2: Pourchaire dominates to become youngest ever F2 winner

The ART Grand Prix driver made the most of his pole position to produce a faultless lights-to-flag drive at his home F2 race - and the 17-year-old took the youngest ever winner record from now McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris.

Prema Racing’s Oscar Piastri claimed second after a slow pit stop hampered team-mate Robert Shwartzman, who finished fourth having held second for the majority of the 42-lap contest.

The final podium place went to UNI-Virtuosi’s Felipe Drugovich after an inspired call to start on the super soft tyres helped him leap from ninth to third.

Pourchaire made no mistake from pole but had to fend off a fast starting Shwartzman to hold the lead into St Devote with Piastri slotting into third.

It was a slightly messy start as a number of cars cut the first corner, while behind Jack Aitken failed to got off the line and rejoined the race a lap down after being pushed back to the pits.

All of the top 10 bar Drugovich opted to start the race held in overcast conditions on the soft tyres.

The top two of Pourchaire and Shwartzman quickly broke away from the rest of the pack headed by Piastri. Race two winner Dan Ticktum held fourth from Juri Vips, Ralph Boschung, Roy Nissany, Christian Lundgaard, Drugovich and championship leader Guanyu Zhou.

Drugovich, on the alternative strategy, was the first of the lead group to pit on lap 10 as the Brazilian came in to swap his super softs for softs.

As the race approached the halfway mark, Pourchaire began to open up a gap on the chasing Shwartzman as the top order remained unchanged.

Ticktum was the first of the top five runners to blink and was followed by Piastri, and then the lead two of Shwartzman and Pourchaire over a period of three laps.

However, it proved to be a disastrous stop for Shwartzman as his Monaco bad luck continued. The Prema pit crew were slow fitting the left rear, leaving the Russian to rejoin behind Piastri and Ticktum.

Oscar Piastri, Prema Racing

Photo by: James Gasperotti / Motorsport Images

Pourchaire’s pit stop was clean allowing him to rejoin in second behind Guanyu Zhou who was yet to pit.

As all eyes were focusing on the pit stops, Marcus Armstrong appeared to be nudged into the Rascasse barriers by Vips forcing the New Zealander out of the race and the virtual safety car to be deployed.

The VSC was briefly lifted before Lirim Zendeli found the wall at Rascasse moments later necessitating another VSC period.

Racing briefly resumed before a third VSC stoppage when Ticktum ran out of road at the Rascasse while trying an outside pass on a compromised Piastri, who locked up at Turn 16. It resulted in putting Ticktum out of the race.

Zhou eventually took his mandatory pit stop on lap 36 which ultimately handed the lead back to Pourchaire, rejoining the race in fifth - also falling behind Piastri, Drugovich and Shwartzman.

Leader Pourchaire made light work of the final laps to score an impressive victory from Piastri and Drugovich.

Shwartzman was left to settle for fourth ahead of Zhou, who made the most of a long first stint, and Boschung.

After being stripped of victory in race two earlier today, Liam Lawson put in a strong drive to claim seventh.

The top 10 was completed by Vips, who finished ahead of Nissany and MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor despite being handed a five second penalty for a clash with Armstrong.

Jehan Daruvala was the only other retirement from the race after sustaining damage from contact with Gianluca Petecof at the Nouvelle chicane on lap 20, the latter was handed a 10 second penalty. The incident came after he had to pit early on for a new front wing and was then caught speeding in the pitlane, copping a five second penalty in the process.

Zhou leads the championship standings by 16 points from Piastri ahead of round 3 at Baku, Azerbaijan from 4-6 June.

Monaco F2 feature race results - 42 laps

Cla	Driver	Team	Time
1	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix
2	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	2.800
3	Felipe Drugovich	UNI-Virtuosi	14.200
4	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	17.900
5	Guanyu Zhou	UNI-Virtuosi	24.100
6	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	30.600
7	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	31.200
8	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	37.000
9	Roy Nissany	DAMS	46.500
10	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	49.500
11	Bent Viscaal	Trident	51.300
12	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	52.900
13	David Beckmann	Charouz Racing System	55.800
14	Marino Sato	Trident	1'11.200
15	Guilherme Samaia	Charouz Racing System	1 lap
16	Gianluca Petecof	Campos Racing	1 lap
17	Alessio Deledda	HWA Racelab	1 lap
18	Jack Aitken	HWA Racelab	2 laps
	Dan Ticktum	Carlin	10 laps
	Lirim Zendeli	MP Motorsport	12 laps
	Marcus Armstrong	DAMS	13 laps
	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	25 laps
View full results