Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Last weekend, Leonardo Fornaroli became only the fifth driver in GP2/F2 history to go nine races into a season without a non-score. Here’s the drivers he joined, and what he made of missing out on victory again

“Consistency” is the buzzword of the FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 paddocks in 2025, and it was particularly the case in the latter last year when Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli became champion without a race win.

This year Fornaroli is driving for Invicta Racing in F2, and after nine races sits third in the standings. He is six points off top spot, and has three podiums to his name. But he is now 127 races into his single-seater career and his sole victory came in Italian Formula 4 four years ago.

However he is also now only the fifth driver since the modern F2 championship’s creation as GP2 in 2005 to score in the first nine races of a season.

Jolyon Palmer achieved it first, using his immense championship experience to take the 2014 GP2 title by scoring in every contest until the penultimate round when his run was ended after 19 races. His closest rival that year was rookie Stoffel Vandoorne, who then romped to the 2015 title with a single non-score that came 10 races into the campaign.

A very distant championship runner-up was Alexander Rossi, whose scoring run lasted one race longer than Vandoorne’s.

Next to start a season with supreme consistency was Nyck de Vries, who claimed three wins and six other points finishes from the first nine races en route to the 2019 F2 title. He only had one non-score prior to the season finale, by which point the third-year driver was aleady champion and his focus had switched to racing for Mercedes-EQ in Formula E.

Felipe Drugovich, another experienced driver, won four of the first 10 races in 2022 but that year’s champion had his initial scoring run ended after eight races due to “a real mess” of a Monaco sprint race in which he ended up on the wrong tyres twice, got a pitlane speeding penalty and then retired.

Fornaroli meanwhile has an average finishing position of fifth so far in 2025, only slightly lower than the 4.7 of Hitech GP’s championship leader Luke Browning. In Monaco last weekend, Fornaroli qualified third for and then finished second in the feature race. His ability to quickly avoid a multi-car crash at the opening corner not only saved his scoring run but put him in the lead, and he only lost that on what would count as the final lap due to missing the opportunity to pit a lap earlier.

First of all, Fornaroli was not impressed with his qualifying. He was second fastest in his group, but 0.546 seconds off pole.

“Of course it’s nice to end in a good spot, but not very happy about the end of my session, not very happy with my driving,” he told media including Formula Scout.

“We were in a good spot until the flat spot I got in my third lap. And then you only have another lap to try to put yourself in a good position. Everything was vibrating, so it’s not how you want to start your final lap. I didn’t want to do other mistakes, so probably left some time in the big braking zones.

“It was looking like a decent lap until the last sector and then, nah, I just did some mistakes. I’m not very happy with myself. With the car, we did a good step compared to [practice] and we’re looking strong. But still we were able to finish in a good result, so we take that.”

After the race, which was an even better result, there was even more frustration as the safety car cost him victory.

“It’s very, very disappointing to miss the win today. I got lucky in turn one that Alex [Dunne] and Victor [Martins] crashed and I didn’t get any damage and took the lead of the race. Then when the race restarted, everything was going well.

“I was feeling very good with the car, I was just trying to manage everything, don’t do any mistakes and arrive at the pit window with good tyres. So I could have pushed properly. Then we just got very unlucky with the safety car. It took a whole lap to put [out] the safety car. I tried to slow down also before the pit entry, but I can’t go 1kph and also I didn’t want to get any penalties. I got the safety car in T1, or approaching T1, so nothing we can do about it. It’s very disappointing.”

Fornaroli pitted on lap 15, and rejoined in second. He was unable to use his fresher tyres to his advantage, as the safety car period caused by Hitech’s Dino Beganovic causing barrier damage with a crash only ended when red flags waved on lap 18. The results were taken from the end of lap 18, and reduced points were given due to the race’s shortened distance.

After he “got stuck in traffic and lost three positions” when he pitted in the previous feature race at Imola, Fornaroli knew it would be “a super important pitstop” in Monaco. He felt “everything was amazing” with the stop Invicta did, but he had already been denied victory as he waited to see if the virtual safety car period – in which his gap at front was maintained – would be turned into a full one after Beganovic’s crash.

When asked if he thought the safety car could have been called out earlier, he was in two minds:

“Well, maybe yes because it was quite clear there was a crash, barriers were damaged. So maybe they could have put safety car earlier, but I’m not the race director, I’m not taking this decision. Probably they did the best for the situation. I don’t know. I’m not in the race director room, so I can’t know these kind of things.”

But had the start of Fornaroli’s race gone slightly different, he would not have been ruing the safety car timing and certainly would not have been headed to Barcelona this weekend with nine points-scoring races in a row to his name.

“I was just at the right place at the right time. I knew that both of them are very aggressive drivers. Victor had a very good start, went on the outside of Alex. And I knew Alex was not going to give up.

“So I said ‘okay, chill, maybe they can crash and go in the wall’. As soon as they touch, I didn’t know what to do because I was thinking ‘are they going to come back on track or go straight into the wall?’. And then as I saw they were going straight, I prepared the mega exit and I luckily escaped the crash.”

Drivers who have started GP2/F2 seasons with a scoring runs of 8+ races

19 Jolyon Palmer (2014)
10 Alexander Rossi (2015)
9 Stoffel Vandoorne (2015), Nyck de Vries (2019), Leonardo Fornaroli (2025)
8 Pastor Maldonado (2009), Luiz Razia (2012), Esteban Gutierrez (2012), Felipe Nasr (2013), Stefano Coletti (2013), Alex Albon* (2017), Lando Norris (2018), Felipe Drugovich (2022)

*Albon missed a round during his scoring run
Drivers who won the title that year are in italics

The post The illustrious group Fornaroli joined with a frustrating Monaco weekend appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Third-year FIA Formula 3 driver Mari Boya achieved his first top-five qualifying result in Monaco last weekend, and converted it into his maiden feature race podium.

It was the second week in a row he had improved his best feature race result, having finished fifth at Imola. In Monaco he qualified third, 0.127 seconds off pole, and stayed there in the race.

Formula Scout asked the Campos Racing driver after qualifying if that result released some pressure.

“Yeah. Clearly it was one of the things I had to work on this year,” he replied. “In Bahrain, we show a really strong pace on testing and then that qualifying really was really hard for me. We didn’t adapt properly to it. But I knew that we learned many things, and we are focusing a lot on qualifying. And I think we found to build my confidence and to [first] do a 90% lap without issues.

“In Imola without a clean lap, I was already top 10, [three] tenths off from P2. Which clearly was more than possible. And today we show again all the time in qualifying we were one-two together with Nikola [Tsolov, his pole-winning team-mate]. It’s still a long championship, and I have a really good confidence. Then the races we always show good potential and a really good pace.”

When speaking to media, Boya added “we can be really proud as a team” and “it was just a matter of time” before a breakthrough qualifying result arrived. Once that translated into a podium, Boya revealed at Campos “we are changing a bit the dynamic of how we work, and I think we are starting to get the results, so I’m very happy with” finishing third.

Since overtaking was difficult, “the race was all about the start” and Boya spent it sat behind Rodin Motorsport’s Roman Bilinski.

“I tried to put some pressure at the beginning to Roman, I felt I was faster than him at that point. I saw he was not making any mistakes, so I decided to go for fastest lap,” explained Boya.

“I saw Roman before the safety car came, he struggled with the tyres. So I knew if I had the chance, it was that moment. So I tried to push. I was following him quite easy. He didn’t make any mistakes, and then I had to defend a bit. I used a bit too much the front tyres.”

Although he believes in “this first part of the championship, many things happened that were completely out of my control”, Boya spoke again ahead of this weekend’s Barcelona round about his growing confidence and points tally.

Barcelona is where Boya became an F3 race-winner in last year’s sprint race, and he sees it as a place he and Campos “have been always strong” at. He believes the “last lap with the first [tyre] set in qualifying” will be crucial “because I expect no big difference between all drivers” due to circuit familiarity.

Additional reporting by Alejandro Alonso Lopez

The post Boya buoyed for Barcelona by breakthrough qualifying result appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: DAMS

Jak Crawford’s pitstop timing won him Formula 2’s Monaco feature race, and it was a very intense experience when he looked to pit.

The race’s 42-lap distance was shortened after a lengthy red flag stoppage on lap one, but running both tyre compounds remained compulsory and when Dino Beganovic crashed on lap 14 it opened the pit window.

Race control responded to the crash with a virtual safety car, then a safety car period and later race-ending red flags. Crawford pitted before doing a lap behind the safety car, retaining fourth thanks to the gaps maintained during the VSC spell and then taking the lead when the top three pitted a lap later.

“When we were still green, I’d seen the crash on TV. And I was entering the last sector, so in turn 18 right before the pit entry I’d slow down like two or three seconds to see if I could go in before the safety car, or VSC. I was thinking it was going to be a safety car,” he explained to media including Formula Scout.

“And then it didn’t go, so I just kept going. And literally as I just passed they put VSC. Then I did the same thing the next lap. I saw the crash, I was like ‘oh, this could be a safety car’. I told the team on the radio ‘be ready, be ready, in case the safety car, I’m just going to pull in’. And I did the exact same thing. Slowed down right before the pit entry, and I saw safety car flashing on the board.

“I pulled right, right in, and barely made it into the pits. And oh my gosh, it was the craziest two laps ever.”

The DAMS driver reiterated it being the “craziest feeling ever”, gushing about “the adrenaline I had when I turned hard right for the pitlane and knew the others weren’t in”.

“I had no idea if they were [bunched] behind the safety car or not. So it was basically zero on my delta trying to [be at maximum safety car pace], just in case they weren’t and I had to race them out of the pitlane. And then once I knew I was ahead, I was just trying to think about the restart because it wasn’t over yet.

“Even when we got in the pitlane [when the race stopped], I was so confused. I didn’t want to speak too soon. Once I found out in the pitlane that it wasn’t going to be resumed, I couldn’t believe it.”

Crawford told Formula Scout “the strategy changed a lot” when the race distance was reduced.

“I guess we all had the same idea to be super close to each other and try to make something happen in the pitstop phase near the end of the race. We had a huge gap behind as well. So I could play with that to try to jump some positions. Because I definitely wasn’t going to lose any.”

Additional reporting by Alejandro Alonso Lopez

The post Crawford had “craziest two laps ever” to time race-winning pitstop right appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Victor Martins will drive for Williams in free practice one at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, where he will also hope to end his points-free run in Formula 2.

The ART Grand Prix driver was rapid in Monaco last weekend, leading F2 practice by 0.616 seconds and topping his qualifying group. But a clash with Oliver Goethe consigned him to 17th in the sprint race, and colliding with his MP Motorsport team-mate Alex Dunne meant he did not get past the feature race’s opening corner.

He has only scored in four races out of nine this year and sits eighth in the standings, but his impressive pace — qualifying in the top three at every round — has been rewarded by Williams with a maiden Formula 1 practice call-up.

“I’m super happy to be taking the wheel of the FW47 for the first time in Barcelona,” said the 23-year-old.

“It will be an incredible experience to drive for the team. I’m working hard to prepare as much as possible to maximise my time in the car and make it a valuable session for myself and the team. I’m hugely grateful to everyone at Williams for giving me this opportunity and I’m looking forward to enjoying every second of it!”

Martins will take over Alex Albon’s car, and his practice outing comes after testing Williams’ 2023 chassis last month.

The post Martins gets F1 run after Monaco F2 crash leaves him with “no words” appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS’ Jak Crawford won a chaotic and frequently disrupted Formula 2 feature race in Monaco, as the points lead changed hands.

At the opening corner of the race, a crash instigated by front row starters Alex Dunne (Rodin Motorsport) and Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) eliminated themselves as well as Richard Vershcoor (MP Motorsport), Gabriele Mini (Prema), Ritomo Miyata (ART GP), Pepe Marti (Campos Racing) and Max Esterson (Trident).

Red flags waved, and after a 42-minute stoppage the race was restarted with a key difference: Prema’s Sebastian Montoya was now on the front row.

Car issues meant he had taken the original start from the pitlane rather than fifth on the grid, and he now lined up alongside Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli at the front.

Behind them were Arvid Lindblad (Campos), Crawford, Luke Browning (Hitech GP), Kush Maini (DAMS), Joshua Duerksen (AIX Racing) and Oliver Goethe (MP).

The safety car led the field back on track, and when green flags eventually waved Fornaroli led the field into turn one.

Everyone got cleanly through, but a rhythm was not established as on lap seven Duerksen crashed at Rascasse.

There was a virtual safety car period, then racing resumed and Invicta’s Roman Stanek was now up to eighth place. That became seventh as Goethe pitted, swapping his supersoft compound tyres for softs in an attempt at getting the fastest lap.

Hitech’s Dino Beganovic soon did the same, as Fornaroli held a half-second gap up front and Crawford actually set fastest laps in fourth.

Goethe eventually grabbed the fastest lap on lap 11, only to be beaten by Beganovic a lap later. But on lap 14 Beganovic became ineligible for the fastest lap point as he crashed out at turn four.

A second VSC period was required, and Crawford, Browning and Maini led a pack of six in to make their compulsory pitstops as the actual safety car was summoned. Goethe pitted again too, since he had little to lose down in 10th place.

A lap later the top three headed to the pitlane, and Lindblad jumped Montoya in the pits. But he had exceeded the pitlane speed limit to do so, copping a five-second penalty that put him back behind.

The trio rejoined the track between Crawford and Browning, and once Lindblad’s penalty was applied he demoted from third to fifth. Race-ending red flags waved on lap 18, and Crawford sealed a 6.6s win as the results were taken from the end of lap 16.

Amaury Cordeel (Rodin) dropped from eighth to 12th due to the timing of the red flags meaning he was classified a lap down as he pitted.

Race results (16 laps)

The post Crawford gets front seat view of Monaco chaos to win F2 feature race appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov won from pole in FIA Formula 3’s Monaco sprint race with a faultless drive.

Tsolov had a gap of over seven seconds to Rodin Motorsport’s Roman Bilinski by the finish despite two safety car periods.

Bilinski was attacked for second at the start by Campos’s Mari Boya, but managed to hold him off and stay with Tsolov. But within a few laps, Tsolov had a lead of over two seconds.

The gap continued to widen until he was over seven seconds ahead when the first safety car period began after Prema’s Noel Leon struck trouble.

Tsolov was not the only driver with space behind him. MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz had a seven-second gap to sixth-placed Charlie Wurz. While the safety car was out, Wurz told his Trident team the car felt wrong as he had front wing damage and a puncture. Before he pit, the restart took place.

Wurz did two more laps, and caused a train of drivers behind him. He soon lost control of the car, colliding with the barriers. At the same time, contact between AIX Racing’s Nicola Mariangeli and Prema’s Brando Badoer put the latter out of the race and the safety car returned. Mariangeli was handed a 10s penalty.

Racing resumed with four laps remaining. Tsolov immediately broke away and built a huge margin for his second win of 2025.

Throughout the race, Boya had company from Rodin’s Callum Voisin. Late on Voisin clipped the wall while challenging for third, but managed to keep going without losing a position. Boya did not put a wheel wrong and finished just 0.671s ahead of Voisin.

Trident’s points leader Rafael Camara had a quiet race. After starting outside the top 10, he made little progress early on. When the safety car came out for a second time, he had made it to ninth but then lost a rear wheel. It hit Joshua Dufek’s car, but the Hitech GP driver did not appear to suffer any damage. Camara made it back to the pits to retire.

After Wurz’s retirement, ART Grand Prix driver Laurens van Hoepen was put back onto the tail of Tramntiz but could not find a way past him and finished seventh.

AIX’s James Hedley missed the race due to a hand injury picked up in the sprint race.

Race results (27 laps)

The post Tsolov wins from pole in FIA F3’s Monaco feature race appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Prema

The difficulty in overtaking meant many Formula 2 drivers switched focus to setting the fastest lap during the Monaco sprint race, but it proved as tricky.

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins achieved the feat after pitting, but the point that accompanies it went to Rodin Motorsport’s ninth-placed Alex Dunne as the fastest driver in the top 10.

Kush Maini (DAMS) and Gabriele Mini (Prema) pulled away at the front of the field but did not lap near Dunne’s pace, and Luke Browning (Hitech GP) inherited third place but had his laptimes neutered for most of the race.

He was stuck behind Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad, who after learning he had a 10-second penalty knew third was unttainable and let the top two gap him so he then had clean air to try to offset the penalty.

Lindblad ended up being fourth fastest, and finished eighth. Mini was fifth, Browning was 1.718s off the fastest lap and despite having cleair air throughout Maini was the 15th fastest driver on track. His best effort was 2.167s slower than Martins’, and only two finishers reached their peak pace earlier than he did.

“I was struggling a bit with front locking,” Maini revealed. “One of my brakes as well fell asleep, so it was not about going for the quickest lap for me this race. It was just about being consistent and not making mistakes and controlling the race.”

He added it was “fair enough” that others backed off as a tactic in pursuit of the fastest lap point.

Mini spent the race’s first half pressuring Maini, then switched focus to the fastest lap. That initially worked as he went quickest on lap 16 of 30, improved by 0.564s on lap 18 but was right behind Maini when others started setting personal bests.

“I tried to put a lot of pressure on Kush, really just be as close as I could to him: almost pushing him in some points on corners. Trying to make him make a mistake,” he explained to media including Formula Scout of his strategy switch.

“But following more or less three quarters of the race on the gearbox of Kush ruined a bit the tyres, so it was quite complicated for me to actually manage to do [the fastest lap].”

Browning was frustrated by Lindblad, who slowed so much he fell 9.5s behind Mini, calling the laps following him “painful” and “annoying”.

“He was trying to create the biggest gap he could to the guys in front. So the moment that I backed off trying to do the fastest lap, he would back off and then block me to do it. So I was kind of screwed if I slowed down and I was screwed if I was quick and right behind him,” rued Browning.

“The reason why I was trying to overtake him so much at the start of the race was if I managed to get past, I’d have a shot at doing the fastest lap. Otherwise, I wouldn’t.”

Sprint race fastest laps

The post Why F2’s Monaco podium finishers weren’t in fastest lap contention appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS’ Kush Maini was victorious from reversed-grid pole in Formula 2’s Monaco sprint race.

Luke Browning was alongside Maini on the front row, but the Hitech GP driver started slowly and was passed by Prema’s Gabriele Mini and Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad.

Jak Crawford then overtook Browning, and had Lindblad in his sights after losing out to him at the start. When he tried getting back past at turn five, they clashed and Crawford dropped back behind Browning.

Mini got close to Maini on lap two, and Browning set the fastest lap on lap six as three seconds covered the top four. Crawford then had clear air behind him to MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor in sixth.

At this point Lindblad was handed a 10-second penalty for his earlier clash, and rather than push he was instructed by Campos to back off and save his tyres.

That strategy looked to have worked, as although he was 9.4s behind Mini by lap 10 the gap soon disappeared due to the safety car coming out.

Just as Maini began lap 12, racing was neutralised due to AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen crashing exiting turn seven. He had made contact with MP’s Oliver Goethe going into the hairpin while disputing 10th place.

Racing resumed on lap 15 of 30, and Maini streaked away. But Mini also had his tyres up to temperature and set the fastest lap on the next tour to reduce Maini’s lead from 1.5s to 0.4s.

Lindblad continued his earlier strategy, dropping four seconds in two laps and falling further away for several more laps.

Mini lowered the pace again on lap 18, and two laps later was on Maini’s gearbox. He remained there until lap 23 when Maini responded with a personal best to go 1.3s clear.

At the same time, Lindblad returned to attacking and went two seconds faster than Mini to slash the 11.8s gap that had opened up. Maini led by 3.8s at the end of lap 24, and Lindblad was now 4.5s behind Mini.

Mini responded on lap 25, reducing Maini’s advantage to 1.5s, but he could not maintain that pace without laps between to cool his tyres as Lindblad continued to home in.

There was 5.2s covering the top three with four laps left, and half a second between Mini and Lindblad. That then became 4.1s as Mini set a personal best, but he was defending thereafter despite Lindblad’s penalty.

The top two places were set at that point, and Maini won by 3.7s. It then became a question of where Lindblad would finish.

A flurry of personal best laptimes from drivers in the top 10 at the end meant he dropped to eighth, with 3.3s covering Crawford, Verschoor, Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli ahead.

Rodin Motorsport’s points leader Alex Dunne was a distant ninth, a position he inherited after a 10s penalty dropped Goethe to 12th. He had a fight with ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins following the restart that led to Martins hitting the outside wall at Rascasse. After pitting due to damage, Martins set the fastest lap down in 17th.

Race results (30 laps)

The post Maini sprints to F2 win in Monaco, penalty pushes Lindblad off podium appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne claimed a dominant victory in FIA Formula 3’s Monaco sprint race.

Stenshorne snatched the lead off the line before an early safety car period. On the restart, second placed Tuukka Taponen could not stay with Stenshorne, who gradually pulled away for his first victory of 2025.

A slow start for reversed-grid polesitter Alessandro Giusti dropped him back to fourth, with fellow front row starter Stenshorne moving to the front as Taponen got the jump on ART Grand Prix team-mate Laurens van Hoepen to take second. Before he could challenge Stenshorne, yellow flags appeared.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Santiago Ramos had made contact with DAMS’ Niko Lacorte while attempting to pass, sending Lacorte spinning. With nowhere to go, AIX Racing’s James Hedley and VAR’s Ivan Domingues, who had problems on the formation lap, made contact with one another and came to a halt on track.

Elsewhere, Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin and Prema’s Noel Leon clashed while fighting, putting Leon out. Nikola Tsolov, who starts the feature race from pole, also had problems and went to the pits where Campos Racing removed his engine cover to inspect the car.

Racing resumed on lap nine of 23, and Stenshore immediately pulled away. He had a peaceful second half of the race, and had a gap of 2.253 seconds at the front by the finish.

Taponen in turn was also unchallenged for second. MP Motorsport’s Giusti had tried to stick with van Hoepen early on, but came under pressure from team-mate Tim Tramnitz. He held him off fourth while also pressuring van Hoepen, and behind them were Trident’s Charlie Wurz and Rafael Camara.

Points leader Camara had started eighth after getting three-place grid penalties for both Monaco races. It was a punishment for lapping too quickly during a red flag interruption in qualifying.

For much of the sprint race, the closest battle was between Campos’s Mari Boya and Voisin for eighth.

Shortly after the restart, Voisin tapped the back of Boya’s car, but no serious damage was done. The pair continued to run nose-to-tail and Voisin’s team-mates Louis Sharp and Roman Bilinski joined the battle. Voisin kept the pressure on but could not find a way through around the tight street circuit.

On the final lap, Voisin attempted a move on Boya, making contact again. This time, Sharp was in position to take advantage, diving past Voisin to snatch ninth.

Race results (23 laps)

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Alex Dunne claimed to be surprised after he achieved his maiden Formula 2 pole position around the streets of Monaco.

The McLaren junior continued his impressive form to beat Victor Martins by three thousandths of a second, claiming pole at a circuit where qualifying often dictates the outcome of the race.

“Putting it on pole was always going to be difficult,” Dunne told media in the post-qualifying press conference. “I think the further we got into qualifying [the more I thought] it’s going to be pretty difficult to beat what Victor did.

“I thought it would be a battle for second but in the end I managed to put all three sectors together.”

Explaining more, he said: “On my lap I locked up and made a mistake in turn five, and then I locked the rears again in turn six and made another mistake. So one corner after another there was two mistakes. And I kind of thought ‘the pole here is probably going to be difficult’. But every time I looked at the dash, I could see the delta, and I could see that I was still going quicker and quicker.”

Practice had appeared to show Dunne and his Rodin team on the backfoot, finishing over a second off Martins.

“Coming from free practice as well, how fast he [Martins] was, like six tenths clear of P2, so to be honest I thought the pole was going to him.

“The team made some changes to the car overnight from free practice and those changes definitely helped.”

With nearest rival Luke Browning in ninth place, Dunne has the opportunity to extend his championship lead ahead approaching the halfway point at Barcelona.

“I feel really comfortable at the moment,” said Dunne. “Especially in a place like Monaco, being comfortable with your environment and with a car and the balance is really, really important and to be honest every time I’ve asked the team to make a change to the car, the change has done exactly what I’ve wanted it to do and I haven’t felt like I’ve had to chase something.

“I feel like I’m performing at a really good level right now. Up until this point, qualifying has probably been one of our weaker points of the weekend. I’ve struggled slightly with putting that together but I’m glad I saved that for Monaco.

He added: “I think we’re in a championship this year where all the drivers are very, very good and you know you’re never really going to be in the scenario where you can always put it on pole and do a lap so I’m glad we managed it today.”

Dunne was investigated after qualifying together with Rafael Villagomez for an incident at the final corner that left the former in the barriers and triggered a red flag. Stewards judged that Dunne was too optimistic in attempting an overtake, but that Villagomez was driving unpredictably, and therefore deemed neither was wholly to blame.

The post Dunne surprised at Monaco F2 pole as he avoids qualifying penalty appeared first on Formula Scout.