10. Kean Nakamura-Berta

New entry • Prema’s Italian F4 and E4 champion

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

Nakamura-Berta came into 2025 having been dropped by the Alpine Academy after a first full Formula 4 season that didn’t live up to the early promise he’d shown in the Middle East, where he’d run Freddie Slater close for the title.

Prema kept its faith in the London-born Japanese-Slovakian to spearhead its all-conquering F4 squad this year and he became the first driver to win both the Italian and E4 titles in the same season, proving he is the Formula 1 team’s loss.

This year he could only finish third in the Middle East series as R-ace GP locked out the top two, but he started his Italian campaign with a run of five straight victories and never looked back.

He was challenged for pace at times by team-mate Sebastian Wheldon – new to European racing but with a good amount of car experience under his belt – and by former international karting rival Gabriel Gomez of the always competitive US Racing team, but Nakamura-Berta’s consistency was unrivalled.

From his 20 starts in the Italian championship, he won nine times and was on the podium in all but three of his other 11 races – a new record. It was a similar story in the three-round E4 series, where he took four wins and four other podiums.

9. Richard Verschoor

Up 15 • F2 veteran was title contender in best season yet

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Verschoor reunited with MP Motorsport for a fifth and final season in Formula 2 in 2025, self-orchestrating a deal to put himself in a truly frontrunning car for the first time.

During the first half of the season he was making the most of the opportunity. A victory in the Jeddah feature race made him the championship leader, and another in the main race at the Red Bull Ring put him back on top by 24 points at the halfway point of the season.

In the second half of the campaign he was on the podium just once, when he won the Qatar sprint race, as a drop-off in qualifying form – 10th in Lusail was his best starting place in the last six feature races – left him otherwise fighting for the lower points positions.

Stripping the paint from his car from Monza to get down to the minimum weight limit didn’t improve his performances, but did put the tall Dutchman’s stronger earlier season form in context.

It wasn’t a season that was ever likely to earn the former Red Bull junior a shot at F1, but it did land him a contract with McLaren and a step towards a fully deserved future as a professional.

8. Nikola Tsolov

Re-entry • Reinvigorated career with F3 challenge

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Red Bull / Dutch Photo Agency

This was a year in which Tsolov returned to the sort of form that allowed him to take Spanish F4 by storm as a single-seater rookie in 2022 and place 17th in this list.

After Tsolov’s two years of toiling in FIA Formula 3 with ART Grand Prix and his split from the Alpine Academy, Campos Racing convinced Red Bull to support him for his third year at this level and he didn’t let either party down.

As for similarly experienced team-mate Mari Boya, there were some struggles in qualifying early on that left him playing catch-up in the championship, even though he won the Bahrain sprint race and came third at Imola. At Monaco came a pole position and feature race victory, and a procedural breakthrough helped him improve in qualifying at more conventional circuits.

He took another pole position and feature race win at the Red Bull Ring, closing him to just one point behind eventual champion Rafael Camara, only to be disqualified for excessive plank wear.

His title chances never recovered, but Tsolov did secure second in the standings and went on to impress in two early F2 appearances with Campos ahead of 2026.

7. Alex Dunne

Re-entry • F2 rookie thrilled with early wins

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Dunne was arguably the standout talent of 2025. In its context, a single performance or sequence of results from a young driver can excite more than a whole championship-winning campaign, and not much bettered Dunne’s early-season F2 form in terms of impression this year.

The Irishman’s potential was well known (he last featured in this list in 27th in 2023) but his step up to F2 came off the back of a pretty low-key single year in FIA F3 and few could have expected him to be a title contender.

Clearly his Rodin Motorsport-run car was fast but Dunne’s dominant win in his first ever feature race in Bahrain was remarkable, and was followed up just two rounds later by a charging drive at Imola that made him the championship leader.

He took pole next time out in Monaco, but things began to unravel when he tried to turn in on Victor Martins at Sainte Devote. The ensuing social media backlash was wholly unjustified, but there would be a few more scrappy moments alongside the sublime over the rest of the year, which cost some points. That’s completely understandable though for a driver who had no prior experience of fighting at the front at anything like this level.

Some outright pace also seemed to be lost across the year, but Dunne was having to single-handedly lead his team without a capable team-mate for most of the year.

6. Jak Crawford

Up 22 • Individual excellence combined with team anonymity

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Inconsistency plagued an F2 season in which Crawford’s individual brilliance not only earned him victories and poles but also lower positions in the top 10 at times when other drivers would likely have not been a points contender at all.

The highs included victories at Imola, Monaco, Silverstone and Baku, but the lows were points-free weekends where DAMS didn’t choose the right direction to go in with his car and there were even deeper rooted problems like engine issues.

This contributed to Crawford only having the 11th best race pace in the field, yet he led more green flag action than anybody else, and the only driver to beat his podium tally and feature race points haul was the champion.

While there wasn’t much more Crawford could do to maximise his car’s potential at times, the third-year F2 driver was not able to take the title fight to a rookie all the way to the finale.

5. Luke Browning

Up 2 • Was a title challenger in first and only F2 season

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Browning finished on the podium in five of the opening eight races in his first full season of F2, and by the ninth race – a fourth-place finish in the Monaco feature race – he had taken the championship lead.

Consistent feature race results were the foundation of Browning’s title bid: he finished inside the top six in nine of the first 10, culminating in his one and only victory from pole position at Monza. Even a drop-off in Friday form in the middle of the year couldn’t stop him on Sundays, and his charging wet-weather drive from 12th to third at home at Silverstone was his personal highlight.

He was the closest challenger to eventual champion Leonardo Fornaroli – 17 points adrift – at the point when his season tailed off, with just one point from the final five races. This certainly wasn’t all in his control: a brake issue plagued him in Abu Dhabi qualifying, by which point the title was already lost and he was already looking towards Super Formula for 2026.

Browning finished fourth in the championship but would have been worthy of more. His feature race points tally was the third highest, with just two points fewer than Jak Crawford and 13 fewer than Fornaroli.

4. Freddie Slater

Up 1 • Showed winning ability in F3, FRegional and GB3

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

Slater won a third of the races he contested in a part-time GB3 campaign this year, and 40% of his races in the Formula Regional European Championship. In total, his 2025 featured 16 victories, eight other podiums and 12 poles.

The Middle East was where Slater began life as a FRegional and FIA F3 rookie. In the former, he started the region’s championship with two poles that were converted into wins, and while he repeated that winning feat at a later event he missed out on the title. In the latter, Slater qualifed in the top 10, then finished second with fastest lap on debut.

FREC was his primary focus, and he won at six of the 10 circuits on the calendar. Two early retirements and a mid-season disqualification meant he did not clinch the title until the penultimate race, but he still ended the season 36 points clear.

The GB3 outings occurred on non-clashing weekends, and Slater led that championship too as he won the season’s first two races from pole. He won again when he returned to the grid at Spa-Francorchamps, then got two second places in his third and final appearance at Brands Hatch to come 12th in the standings.

Spa was also where Slater’s second weekend in F3 was, and in November he raced in the FIA FRegional World Cup-awarding Macau Grand Prix. On the trickiest of street circuits he topped the first qualifying session, was just pipped in the second, won the qualification race then one small error ended his victory chances and his day in the main race.

3. Rafael Camara

Up 5 • Perfect preparations meant F3 title was earned early

Photo: Pauline Ballet

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

After three excellent years with Prema, Camara made the step up to FIA F3 this year with Trident and it led to him comfortably claiming the title as a rookie.

The championship’s new car proved to be of great benefit rather than a new challenge in an inexperienced line-up at Trident, since the team found out the intricacies needed to nail qualifying during the pre-season.

Of course Camara still needed to deliver with the strongest car on the grid, and he did just that by taking pole, victory and fastest lap in the feature race in three of the first five rounds. His team’s advantage waned after that, but Camara still won from pole at the Hungaroring and that crowned him champion with a round to spare.

Even with the rest of the paddock having caught up to Trident, come season-end the benchmark driver on single-lap and race pace continued to be Camara and in such a competitive championship he had a ridiculously high median starting position on Sundays of 1.5.

2. Dennis Hauger

Re-entry • Utilised F2 experience to dominate Indy Nxt

Photo: James Black

Photo: Joe Skibinski

Three seasons in F2 proved unrewarding for Hauger, as his points tally decreased with each campaign and he never came higher than eighth in the standings despite being one of the top talents on the grid. But without those years of disappointment in junior single-seaters’ most competitive championship he wouldn’t have been able to dominate Indy Nxt with ease in 2025.

Hauger’s knowledge of tyre management meant the pitstop-free yet lengthy races in IndyCar’s primary feeder series suited his skillset, and qualifying also proved far easier to get right than in F2. In fact, he was on pole at seven of the first eight circuits on the calendar and often said “it feels natural” to drive Ind Nxt’s car.

His seamless transition into the championship was shown by taking victory, pole and fastest lap in each of the first two rounds, and if there were any questions about whether such dominance would continue into the oval leg of the season he showed he could adapt to the new challenge of those circuits too. He claimed pole for his first oval race, which was the only one one of the four he didn’t finish on the podium of.

Hauger last made this list in 2023, coming in at 31st place, and his high placing this year is in spite of an Indy Nxt grid lacking strength in depth due to such an impressive level of domination.

1. Leonardo Fornaroli

Up 5 • Mr consistency nails F2 title in his rookie season

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

That Fornaroli won last year’s FIA F3 title with consistency and without winning a race was understandably used against him. That he continued with a similar approach in F2 and won the title at the first attempt has to be applauded for what it is.

It certainly cannot be said that Fornaroli wasn’t fast. He had the best qualifying results on average, was second-fastest on ultimate one-lap pace to Victor Martins (who could rarely use that pace in the races) and started from pole in three feature races and from second place in two others.

Critically and most impressively, he qualified inside the top 10 at all 14 attempts. Courtesy of the reversed grid, that helped him to win three sprint races alongside his solitary feature race victory across four consecutive weekends as the season entered its second half. That sequence took him from fourth in the championship and 28 points off the lead to having a lead of 28 points with three rounds left to play.

He was consistent in his race results as well as his qualifying performances, only failing to score points in two of the 25 races that it took him to clinch the title.

Right now, F2 rewards drivers who can score consistently with a fast car underneath them, and nobody could stop the combination of Fornaroli and Invicta Racing.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2025: 10-1 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: McLaren

Leonardo Fornaroli and Richard Verschoor have revealed how they joined the McLaren Driver Development Programme.

McLaren announced their arrivals earlier this month, after rookie Fornaroli was crowned Formula 2 champion in Qatar.

Verschoor, who ended his fifth F2 season third in the standings, will switch to sportscars in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 prototype class next year while Fornaroli says his “programme will be announced soon” although Mclaren were “still finalising the details” in mid-December.

“I chose McLaren because it was the best choice for my career and also it provides a very nice racing programme and developing programme,” said Fornaroli.

He added to Formula Scout: “We started talking after Baku [in late September]. We also discussed with other teams, and I really appreciate the interest and efforts from the other teams. It was a completely new and humbling experience, for me seeing all this interest. But McLaren was the best choice, and we closed the deal when we were in Qatar.”

Since McLaren’s Formula 1 drivers have contracts to 2027, and finished one-two in this year’s championship, Fornaroli was asked if he would pursue a seat elsewhere to graduate to F1. He sidestepped that in his response, saying “putting all of that work in [myself going forward] is the best chance” of reaching F1.

When Formula Scout asked if McLaren would financially support a racing programme, Fornaroli said “I prefer to not answer this”, but referred in another answer to other support already received.

“I had a chat with Andrea [Stella, team principal], and the best thing he told me is that when I’m doing something both inside and outside the track, always put a goal in your mind. Because it’s like this: you’re going to achieve a great result and they’re your own goals.” 

Verschoor is “very proud to be” with McLaren, and before his ELMS programme was revealed said his 2026 plans would “be decided by them”.

“There’s many opportunities within McLaren where first of all I can develop myself as a driver,” beamed Verschoor.

“I’m able to work with all the engineers that work there from multiple categories. Which for sure I can learn a lot from. Not only that, I think the whole package is there within McLaren where I can take use of.”

Verschoor first talked to McLaren in April: “After a race in Jeddah that I won, I decided to walk to [Mclaren’s chief executive officer] Zak Brown, and that’s when things kind of kickstarted. I’m not sure if that helped in the end. I think it did. Because at that time, we didn’t get to a point where we could work together.

“But then later on in the year, around Baku, is when things and the contact was there again. And from thereon we started speaking. They spoke that they would like to consider me as their driver. And to be honest it was quite late that I signed the contract. Just before [Qatar]. It was a nerve-wracking few months, but very happy.”

The post Fornaroli and Verschoor reveal timeline of how they joined McLaren appeared first on Formula Scout.

The correlation between pace and results was missing once again with the Dallara F2 2024 for some this year, but the bigger story was whether anyone in the field really had the potential to beat Leonardo Fornaroli

When Formula Scout came to review the 2024 Formula 2 season, the first using a new car, the easiest way to sum up the relationship between pace and points was “How talent shone through in an F2 season of statistical quirks”.

The same applies to 2025, where the fastest driver in the field came 11th in the standings. And he knew he was fastest.

Invicta Racing was the team to beat with the Dallara F2 2024, and did the title double again as rookie Leonardo Fornaroli was crowned champion and Roman Stanek scored over 100 points too down in 10th in the table.

Over the 27-race season, Fornaroli amassed twice as many points as his team-mate and 36 more than anyone else. The same gap split second to fifth in the standings. A record-equalling 14 rounds led to 10 drivers scoring a century of points, a tally only matched in 2020 and beaten in 2022, but Fornaroli’s total was only the 17th highest haul in GP2/F2 history.

Halfway through the latest campaign, Formula Scout delved into the data and Stanek’s quote “in F2 qualifying and the race, they are two different sports” headlined the analysis due to the disparity between the two numerical threads.

And rather than start now with comparing Fornaroli to his rivals, we’ll look at Stanek’s season as the pace and results of a ‘weaker’ driver in a line-up is a good way of demonstrating how competitive their team and their lead driver is.

Invicta was fifth in the teams’ standings at the season’s halfway point, 37 points behind championship leaders Campos Racing, with Fornaroli and Stanek fourth and 11th in the points table. Across the first seven rounds, they were on average the third and ninth fastest drivers in the field, then 11th and 16th on race pace.

Absolute pace

Stanek scored three-and-a-half times as many points in the season’s second half, his tally actually beating what Fornaroli achieved in the first half of the season. At the halfway point, Stanek had seven feature race points while Fornaroli had 65.

In the second half of 2025, Stanek scored 65 feature race points and Fornaroli netted 81. That 16-point difference was smaller than the advantage title rivals Jak Crawford at DAMS (61), Richard Verschoor at MP Motorsport (18) and Alex Dunne at Rodin Motorsport (36) had, but larger than Luke Browning’s three-point outscoring of team-mate Dino Beganovic at Hitech GP.

Having a competitive team-mate was an advantage, since Invicta and Hitech’s duos all scored 65 or more points and the teams rose to first and second in the standings. Crawford, AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen and Prema’s Gabriele Mini were the only other drivers to exceed 37 points in the season’s second half, with 67, 62 and 41 respectively.

Invicta’s team principal James Robinson told Formula Scout about Stanek’s input in the team’s competitiveness, which was key to Fornaroli’s title bid, saying “his technical understanding of the vehicle is really second-to-none”.

By the end of the year, after Stanek had taken two poles which were converted into second places and won the feature race at Spa-Francorchamps, and victories in three sprint races and one feature race had gone to Fornaroli, the pair were on average the second and fourth fastest drivers of 2025 on single-lap pace (with Fornaroli ahead) and eighth and 14th on race pace.

The improvement in results at Invicta, making it the team to beat, were backed up by quotes from the Silverstone sprint race which kicked off the second half of the campaign. Fornaroli claimed his first win, and Stanek joined him on the podium.

“We changed massively,” said Stanek. “Mainly the work is done outside of the race track, then you just come on the race and prepare it. We did a lot of work behind the scenes, from simulator to some mental health and how to drive a race car. I’ve been missing… not some information, but some little details that helped me in the races, especially.”

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

He added that “although it’s my third season in F2, every day you keep learning new and new stuff” and that the team had “improved a lot”.

Fornaroli was less insightful about the team’s pace, with his favourite phrase over the year being “it means nothing”. What he meant was that strong results or the points lead, which he took in round nine at Spa, couldn’t be taken for granted.

He was analytical about individual races in conversation, primarily because that’s the info people asked for after each of his four wins, but after winning the Spa sprint race he did discuss his progress as a rookie.

“Now that I have more races in my back, as well as testing, I understood more about the tyres. At the start, it was not easy because compared to Formula 3 it’s quite different. But the biggest step forward I did [was] in Silverstone, so there I learned a lot and it was a very similar situation [to winning today].”

That first win, after becoming 2024 FIA F3 champion with no victories, was “a weight lifted” and a “confidence boost” that enabled Fornaroli to further raise his game.

Fornaroli and Stanek’s working relationship actually extended back to 2022, with both racing for Trident for three years but always in different championships, and they credited it frequently during the season for their collective strength as a line-up.

Crawford came second in F2 this year, and despite the continuity of racing for DAMS faced blind alleys on set-up and had to rely on individual brilliance to bring home big results. He scored 88 points in the season’s first half, and 87 in the second.

After winning the wet Silverstone feature race, a points-free Spa weekend followed. Then Crawford finished third in both races at the Hungaroring, but a points-free weekend at Monza followed. Then he won the Baku feature race from pole, but scored only one point at Losail.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Crawford knew Silverstone would be a “a track that would suit our car”, and expanded on how circuit comparability impacted consistency.

“We find every weekend quite different, and always different challenges, of course. I mean it’s same for everyone, but we seemed to already last year with the team struggle a bit more with consistency. And this year it’s been a lot better, but it hasn’t been consistently at the front, it’s been kind of consistently in the top 10. I think we’re improving.”

At the Hungaroring he qualified third, rose from eighth to third in the sprint race then maintained his position behind the Invicta duo in the feature race. The third-year F2 driver called his best qualifying lap “one of the best laps I’ve done in F2”, despite it not delivering pole, and cited previous instances of post-practice set-up adjustments hampering his qualifying.

Invicta’s drivers were slowest in Monza practice and Crawford was ninth, behind team-mate Kush Maini. In qualifying, Browning took pole, Maini showed DAMS’ potential by pipping Stanek to second, Fornaroli was eighth and Crawford was in 11th with engine issues that left him way off the pace in the races too.

Since several of Crawford’s bad weekends occurred in the first of back-to-back rounds where he then bounced back, he said “I feel like we’ve done a great job to look past the bad, until we feel like we need to look back at it and make adjustments”. Whether that approach truly helped is unknown, but even if he had been consistent Crawford felt the title wasn’t likely.

“It’s hard to beat when the team [Invicta] and also Leo have done a great job. So anyways, even at our best, it would have been very difficult still. We just missed a little bit. Maybe Invicta were the most consistent team, especially when it came to qualifying. I feel like me, Richard and Luke, we were all a bit inconsistent. And it just comes down to a bit the car.

“Kind of [on] the new car that we’ve had since last year, it’s more tricky to get into the window. I feel like the tyres always have been very tricky to get in the correct window. So those two things, if you’re not getting it right every time, you pay the price.”

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Ahead of Monza, Verschoor sought improved pace by introducing a blander livery that weighed less in paint. According to F2’s own info, he was the tallest driver on the grid in 2025. Therefore his car spent many races far above the minimum weight.

He was 24 points clear at the top halfway through the season, sixth on absolute pace and second on race pace, and ended the year seventh and first on those two metrics. His performances earned him McLaren Formula 1 junior status alongside Fornaroli, and unlike the champion he has a confirmed racing programme for 2026 as he heads to the European Le Mans Series.

But having led the way on 114 points, he only scored 56 more after that despite eight successive points-scoring races. His sole podium was victory in the Losail sprint race. That result made him the highest-scoring driver in sprint races this year, but Fornaroli, Crawford and Browning were far ahead with their feature race tallies. While his single-lap pace only worsened slightly after the Red Bull Ring round in summer, where he claimed his third win, that proved costly while others improved.

He never qualified on pole, but having an average starting spot on Sundays of 6.86, with a median of fifth place since 19th in Imola was his only time outside of the top 10, still proved enough to bring in the points in the season’s first half. His average starting spot was 10.71 in the second half, where Silverstone and Losail were the only tracks where he was in the top 10.

There was some irony that at Monza his new livery did seem to help, as he was second fastest in qualifying before he had his fastest lap deleted for triggering a red flag period when he crashed out while in clean air.

To some degree, poor qualifying form meant more opporunities to rise up the order in races. But he actually proved better at that in the season’s first half, improving his position in nine out of 13 races. The Losail win was his eighth in F2, making him the joint fifth most successful driver in GP2/F2 history. It meant “not much” for a driver with over 125 starts.

Fornaroli won the title the next day, and the unravelling of Verschoor’s title attack appeared to be of his own making as team-mate Oliver Goethe was in the top 10 five out of seven times in the season’s second half and his average starting spot on Sundays was 9.14.

Qualifying

Goethe served three-place grid penalties in both Losail races for an impeding violation in qualifying, which he had topped. That meant “a huge amount” to Goethe, after working hard through the season to improve his qualifying, and Verschoor was 0.678s back in 10th. MP and Invicta were the only two teams to get both of their cars into the top 10, and while Goethe exited the weekend with no points he was fifth in both races of the Abu Dhabi season finale while Verschoor scored nothing.

“Yesterday I just didn’t do a good job. I also apologised to the team of course for that. My team-mate did a phenomenal job,” Verschoor said after his Losail win.

“He showed that he’s really quick and that the car is very good around here. And I think we showed it again today in the race. For sure the car is very competitive on this kind of track. Also next week, I know that we are good as well in Abu Dhabi. So it’s up to me to perform. Yesterday I could just feel that – I’m not someone that is driving at all in the break.

“I haven’t been in a race car for two months, and I think that’s just not really smart. Even though it’s very expensive to drive, it’s just not smart because I could feel the difficulty in putting the lap together.”

For a driver in his fifth F2 campaign, it was a very odd remark. After the big break before the Middle Eastern rounds in the previous three seasons, he had returned to action with a sprint race podium each time. His expectation of performing strongly at Yas Marina Circuit was based on a run of podiums there since 2022, including third place and fastest lap in last year’s feature race with the then-new Dallara F2 2024 car.

“I just didn’t have the right feeling with the car [at Losail]. Even though I could feel that there was a lot of potential, I struggled to put everything together, to nail every corner, and I only did five laps in free practice because my engine broke. I had to change engine after FP. So that was also not helping. It just didn’t click. Sometimes you have those kind of sessions, and it was definitely up to me.”

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Based on his own comments, even with a competitive car Verschoor was not getting in positions to remain a rival to Fornaroli.

He also didn’t want to take credit for Goethe’s improving over his first full F2 season, after his team-mate said “I try to learn as much as I can from” Verschoor. But he revealed they spent lots of time together away from the track, and was full of praise:

“I always said that he’s a super fast driver. He just couldn’t really show his potential straight away, but if you see the learning slope that he did, it’s just incredible. Being on pole yesterday I think was something no one was really expecting of him, but he pulled it off.”

That Invicta’s line-up entered 2025 with similar experience disparity, but the roles were reversed in terms of who was doing the late-season catching up to the lead driver’s performance level, further marks out Fornaroli as 2025’s only title-capable driver.

But what about Browning, Dunne, or even Campos’s Arvid Lindblad? Browning came fourth in the standings, but second was within reach, Dunne was Verschoor’s closest rival at the halfway mark and Lindblad’s performances earned him an F1 seat.

Lindblad can be ruled out, impressive as he was in his rookie season, as he was behind team-mate Pepe Marti in the standings when the Spanish sophomore ended his campaign two rounds early to step up to Formula E with Cupra Kiro.

“His decision to step away from F2 and commit fully to our FE project is a real statement of intent,” said the team’s chief operating officer Russell O’Hagan, and he was right. It was a cannily timed move, as Marti was a Red Bull junior like Lindblad but not getting any F1 test time or free practice call-ups like his team-mate was. If beating him wasn’t putting him contention for a 2026 Racing Bulls berth, and Ayumu Iwasa’s title-winning Super Formula season wasn’t enough to be picked over Lindblad either, then it was unlikely a spectacular 2026 in F2 or Red Bull’s usual dumping ground SF would for 2027.

Furthermore, Marti’s replacement Nikola Tsolov also outshone Lindblad. On his debut at Losail, a new track to him and without the pre-season preparations other rookies had, the FIA F3 graduate qualified seventh while Lindblad was 17th.

Race pace

Did less than three rounds. Race pace is calculated using drivers’ best rolling average of 10 consecutive green-flag laps

That put him fourth on the sprint race grid, and he took third from Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez on lap one. They went wheel-to-wheel again on the final lap and Tsolov came off worse, dropping to 10th.

He was also set to finish one place higher than he started in the feature race, but a penalty for a unsafe release from his first ever pitstop put him back to seventh. Tsolov had “a busy couple of weeks trying to prepare myself physically” and faced many new elements under the lights in Qatar but “the only surprise was the call to move up” to F2 itself.

Lindblad redeemed himself by charging up to fourth, but that was his first top-five finish in a feature race since his win from pole in round six at Barcelona. When they headed to Abu Dhabi, Tsolov was faster again in qualifying. An impeding violation meant a three-place grid penalty in both races for Tsolov, but he rose from fifth to third in the sprint race and while there were only two circuits to take data from his average deficit to the benchmark on single-lap and race pace was sixth best in the field.

The fastest driver in the Yas Marina sprint race was Duerksen, who bookended 2025 with victories, claimed six podiums in the last eight races, led more laps total than all but Crawford and Fornaroli, was fifth on race pace for the year but 13th on single-lap pace and came ninth in the standings in a one-sided garage as team-mate Cian Shields propped up the field.

In contrast to Duerksen, Browning scored one point in the last five races and that cost him the championship runner-up spot. He led the points after round five in Monaco, had the best race pace in four races, and it would’ve taken only one race going differently for him to be 2025’s top scorer in feature races. Despite leading less than a feature race-worth of laps all season.

Laps led (excl. safety car periods)

1 Crawford 103   2 Fornaroli 90   3 Lindblad 61   4 Verschoor 60   5 Duerksen 54   6 Dunne 55   7 Beganovic 49   8 Marti 44   9 Maini 42   10 Browning 22   11 Stanek 16   12 Martins 12   13 Montoya 8   14 Miyata 5   15 Goethe 3   16 Mini 1

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Browning’s unpropitious end to the year began in the Baku feature race, where he had a slow start, lost time in a double stack pitstop, went off at a restart and pitted again to be a lap down. At Losail he spun in practice, qualified 18th and recovered to 10th in the feature race by cycling to the front (7% of his time leading in 2025) before pitting with three laps to go.

At Yas Marina he qualified 17th while struggling with a brake issue, finished the two races in 20th and 14th and got a pitlane speeding penalty.

Browning was fifth and fourth on absolute and race pace at the season’s halfway point, and improved to fourth in the latter but fell to eighth in the former with a minor worsening of his actual average gap to the benchmark pace on any given weekend.

He matched Fornaroli’s tally of nine podiums, while Crawford, Dunne and Duerksen all got eight, but only won once (from pole at Monza). The only other driver without multiple victories in the top in the standings was team-mate Beganovic.

Did a lack of winning form matter? Not according to Browning himself. “Honestly, I don’t mind [not winning],” was his take after a double podium in round three at Imola. He added at Barcelona “it doesn’t cross my mind at all to win any races” and “I couldn’t tell you who won the Barcelona feature race four years ago, but I can tell you who won the championship, so that’s the main goal for me”.

While being happily win-free doesn’t sound like a title-winning mentality, the Williams junior was conveying how relaxed he felt about his season at that point having met his personal targets — including improved consistency and showing race-winning pace. And he’d won twice en route to third in the 2024 FIA F3 Championship, behind Fornaroli and one-time winner Mini.

At the end of the season, after Browning had spent many weekends being asked by media about whether wins or consistency was more important for winning the title, Formula Scout circled back to his early-season comments. Since he had won a race, but not the title, what did he want his season to be remembered for within the paddock, and outside of it?

Points scored

Feature races			Sprint races
Pos	Driver	Points	Pos	Driver	Points
1	Fornaroli	144	1	Verschoor	62
2	Crawford	133	2	Fornaroli	61
3	Browning	131	=3	Dunne	44
4	Verschoor	108	=3	Lindblad	44
5	Dunne	102	=3	Marti	44
6	Beganovic	90	6	Crawford	38
7	Lindblad	88	7	Duerksen	34
8	Duerksen	73	8	Browning	31
9	Stanek	72	=9	Stanek	29
10	Marti	68	=9	Martins	29
11	Montoya	67	=11	Beganovic	26
12	Martins	64	=11	Mini	26

“Great question. What was really special about this year for me, which I think really shows who I was as a driver, is being the hero for the British fans at the home grand prix. That feature race, I came from outside the points, and I was lapping a second quicker than most people in the grid in the wet. And around my home circuit that I knew so well, I think it showed talent, because after all, all the cars are equal in the wet.

“That was probably one of the most standout things for me, and what I’d like to be remembered by is my wet-weather prowess. But I think equally the ability to execute and just optimise what I have in terms of the points. For the pace that we’ve had this year versus the points and situations that I’ve been in, I’ve almost optimised everything as a driver that I can.

“Not always do you have the luck to win the championship, you need pace and luck. And we didn’t have so much luck this year, especially with the safety car coming out when we were looking on for a podium last weekend [from 18th on the grid]. These things happen. Dominating in Monza was a good highlight, and not an easy one on a circuit that’s so easy to overtake. And just doing this in our first year. It takes guys years and years to perfect this championship, and still don’t achieve it. And although I’ve not managed to perfect the championship, we got bloody close at times, and I think I’m very proud of that.”

Saying he optimised everything doesn’t correlate with the season-end particularly. Beganovic finished ahead of him in 10 races, and six of those were in the last three rounds. He dominated the Baku sprint race to break his own victory duck and lead a Hitech one-two, and in the Losail feature race led a one-two again on fastest laps and race pace. But he finished ninth, and called it “one of my best races I’ve ever done”.

Hitech came second in the standings with its all-rookie line-up, and the 38-point gap to Invicta could’ve been far smaller or negated entirely. So maybe Browning was a title-calibre driver maximising his potential until the last two qualifying sessions.

Invicta, Hitech and Campos were the only teams to get double podiums, each doing so twice, while the champions were on the podium at 10 circuits, with Hitech, Campos and Rodin (which came eighth in the teams’ standings) collecting trophies from eight rounds. Like AIX, Rodin was reliant on one driver and its rookie Dunne scored all but five of its 155 points.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

He was frank about what lacking a team-mate he could take data references from to improve his own car meant for his year.

“There was a relatively big gap between myself and the other car for most of the year,” Dunne told Formula Scout.

“There were a couple of times where there were things that I could maybe have a look at just to compare myself. But for the most part, it was very difficult to pick apart things to find for the majority part of the year. In fairness to Martinus [Stenshorne], in Qatar he jumped in pretty quickly and did a good job there. So I would say that was kind of the first weekend of the year where I had another reference to properly analyse and learn from, and spend a lot more time looking through the data to just see where I can improve.

“I think for the most part of the year, even without a strong reference, we’ve still done a good job kind of getting there, not by ourselves, but without having data to properly compare to each weekend. We’ve always managed to still reach a very high level.”

Dunne was the second fastest driver at the season’s halfway point, and sixth on race pace. He was surpassed by Fornaroli on absolute pace after that, and to ninth on race pace despite his average gap to the pace-setters only increasing marginally. That’s impressive given the lack of a strong team-mate meant he couldn’t enjoy the learning curve Fornaroli had.

As a McLaren junior Dunne could lean on their support to improve himself, while Browning felt he developed massively under Williams this year. Dunne got two F1 practice call-ups too, both on F2 weekends so requiring in-event adaptation, then he left McLaren in October to reportedly pursue a seat with an F1 rival. Dunne didn’t comment on this when asked by Formula Scout.

There’s one driver who notably has not been named in this review of the 2025 F2 title fight, because he didn’t feature in it.

Victor Martins was on average the fastest driver in qualifying this year, without a doubt, as he was never off the pace. But the reasons he came 11th in the standings in his third campaign with ART Grand Prix will require analysing on their own.

The post Could anyone have beaten Fornaroli to the 2025 F2 title? appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: @datanromar

Financial support – or a lack of it – defines many if not all racing careers. Richard Verschoor has been on the negative side of it for years, but that is no longer the case thanks to well-structured self management.

In an era where most drivers arrive at the race-track surrounded by their families, managers, driving coaches and physios, Richard Verschoor is accompanied only by a couple of friends if at all. He has earned himself a spot on the list of drivers whose trophy cabinets would feature more silverware if their budgets had allowed for better opportunities.

The Dutchman became 2016 SMP and Spanish Formula 4 champion in a maiden single-seater season that gained him Red Bull backing early on. The following campaign in Formula Renault did not live up to the expectations, however, and he left the Red Bull Junior Team, which put his whole career at risk. But that was not the only time he came close to quitting. “Before winning the Macau Grand Prix in 2019, the 2020 season looked impossible,” Verschoor says. And there was also little hope left after he lost his biggest sponsor in the second half of 2021.

Still he never gave up and kept finding ways to be on the starting grid one year after the other. And after four seasons as Formula 2’s underdog, he earned the opportunity to fight for the drivers’ championship in 2025. This has only happened as a result of a lot of hard work, closing deals and establishing reliable partnerships, which Verschoor has reflected on in conversation with Formula Scout.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he says. “It was either I tried to make something of my career and what I love, or I stopped. Because when I got dropped from Red Bull basically there was no way to continue.”

Photo: Red Bull

At this point, 17-year-old Verschoor decided to take his destiny into his own hands and became his own manager. He started contacting potential sponsors and eventually gathered enough support to line up a solid racing programme for the 2018 season. Eight years on, he is “very proud and happy” of what he has achieved.

“In the beginning you start with one sponsor, two sponsors, three sponsors, and now I have 34 sponsors or partners. I always say partners instead of sponsors. That is quite a lot; 34 different companies that are supporting me. I think that’s quite special, and I think I have more sponsors than some F1 teams.”

“Always be yourself and always be sure that whatever you say, you do” were the first lessons Verschoor took from his father in the early days. Returning a bit more than what is expected is also a must. It is all about creating a partnership where both parties work together to reach common goals. Go beyond just closing a sponsorship deal.

“You can never expect anyone to do something for you without doing anything in return. I always try to give them back as much as I can or at least I try. And of course sometimes that goes better than other times,” he says.

“It’s very easy of course, if someone gives you money, to say thank you. And what happens quite often is that then the drivers never really reach out to them again or are not grateful. I think that’s something very important. You have to be grateful for everybody that has helped you. Even if it’s 10 euros – to exaggerate it a bit. Everything helps. And I’m very grateful that my partners are supporting me this way because without them I wouldn’t be driving.”

Verschoor has been able to fine-tune his partner-seeking skills over the years. It is crucial that future partners hear about the project straight from the horse’s mouth. That is why he is reluctant to have a manager doing deals for him even though the task is highly time and energy-consuming.

“I’m not sure how many drivers do sponsorship by themselves. I heard many times that someone does it for them. But that’s the first thing I would exclude because I have learned that that doesn’t work,” he says.

“If you have a dream, you have to tell the person that has the same dream with his company yourself. If you don’t say it yourself, it has no emotional connection. And in the end, it’s not only about the money and what they get back. It’s also about the connection with the person that you’re speaking to. Because I think that’s where it starts. If he wants to help you, that’s already 50 percent of the deal.

“One strategy that is still helping me right now is dividing the amount that I need in many different kinds of sponsors. Because I need a lot of money and I can get to that amount of money because I reach out to many, many companies. And they are from different fields. In that way I can connect all of them because maybe they can do business or they have a client who can help them.

“And it is also risk-spreading. Because if one doesn’t pay out of 34, it’s less than if one doesn’t pay out of one — because then I would have no money at all. Risk-spreading is very important, but also creating the connection between partners is something I value a lot.”

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The popularity of Formula 1 has increased worldwide and particularly in Verschoor’s native country in recent years, and that has had a direct impact on companies’ willingness to get involved in motorsport. Either in F1 itself or in other series, several different opportunities arise for both business-to-business (B2B) deals and business-to-consumer (B2C) exposure.

“Ever since Max [Verstappen] has been so successful, the racing in the Netherlands is much more popular,” Verschoor admitted. “A lot of companies want to go to Zandvoort or other races with their clients or with colleagues.

“And of course that helps as well because sponsoring F1 is very expensive. Sponsoring F2 is also expensive, but less expensive. I think that has definitely helped me that the popularity of the sport has been growing. But also the good thing is I really have something to offer. Because it’s super cool to be present at an F1 event. There are so many people. It’s really something special, and also there is so much social media attention there.

“There is so much to offer to a sponsor that it makes my life to find a sponsor easier. I mean, if I were looking for a sponsor for karting, it would be much more difficult,” he says.

Verschoor’s current position of financial security comes off-the-back of years of struggles, with lots of lessons learnt the hard way. Having to secure the budget for the next season over the winter makes finding a competitive seat more difficult and vice versa. On one side, he had to convince teams that he would eventually obtain the funding. On the other side, he had to convince potential partners that his racing programme would be worth the support.

“I think this is the toughest part of all of it,” he confesses. “Because I have always had to sign the contract before I’ve gotten all the money from my sponsors. So I have always taken quite a risk. And now I’m very happy that I have very trustable partners that support me and help me.

“It’s not always been easy. I have been feeling a lot of financial stress. If people are possibly not paying, it’s always a bit difficult to talk about. Because I cannot say much about that if a sponsor is not paying because it’s bad for my image and for their image.

“Sometimes things don’t go so well and what I’ve learned from all of it is to be very strict on the agreements that you make and always put everything on paper and in a contract. Even though there’s many people that you trust and sometimes you feel like you can trust, but I have had a few occasions unfortunately where it didn’t go as I planned and as I thought I agreed with them. So that’s for sure an important factor.”

Being always on the edge has developed a fear for damage that is still there nowadays. “Not for the risk of injury but for the risk of invoice.”

“To be honest, when I race, I don’t really think about it. If I see a gap or if I take a risk, I don’t care. Because at the end of the day, if I don’t do that, it’s better not to race. But once it happens, for example at Monza [qualifying], it’s one of the first things I think about. Because not only I ruin my whole weekend, I can also expect an invoice. So it’s always a bit of a game. And I think for me, it will never go away.”

Photo: Red Bull

Although self-management is highly demanding, Verschoor is adamant that his on-track performances have never been compromised. Nevertheless, he recognises that he wouldn’t mind reducing the amount of activities currently featuring in his schedule. In fact, he has been helped with his racing programme negotiations for 2026, but the rest is fully steered by himself.

“I’m so much more complete as a driver now because I do everything myself. I think I’ve been maturing a lot in the last years, months, because I simply have to do everything myself and I’m really happy with that. And I would recommend it to anyone.

“I’m so dedicated to my sport and I would give up everything to win because it takes me so much work to be there. So it’s not that I just sign a contract and that’s it. When I sign the contract, my hard work starts. And in-between I do the usual driver stuff, which is working out. But for the rest, I’m working on getting everything done.

“To be honest, if I could choose I would like to do half of what I do now. I wouldn’t like to do nothing because I think it helps me to stay sharp and develop myself as a person instead of as a driver. But at the moment it’s full push everyday, and sometimes it’s a bit too much.

“Just as an example. Today I was filming with a sponsor at the karting track, then I had a meeting in the car for one hour in-between. Then I went to film at MP Motorsport with another sponsor. And now I’m on the way to the gym. Tomorrow, I work out again in the morning, then I go to film again in Amsterdam. And in the evening, I have a sponsor event. On Thursday, I go to the simulator. On Friday, I have another sponsor event, and in the evening I go on TV. And then on Sunday, again I have a sponsor event in the morning. So basically I’m trying to do a lot for my sponsors.”

Verschoor enjoys getting involved with his partners to help them reach their targets, forging a strong bond. He seizes every opportunity to learn new skills and apply them to create value across different fields.

“I’ve been working with so many different kind of companies. And basically what I am always doing is also thinking with them about their marketing strategy. For some of them it’s more exposure, other ones just want to bring the clients to the track or to an event. And I can also help them with those kind of things. Because I’ve done that so many times I know exactly what works, what doesn’t work. If you organize an event, you want to get potential clients there. ‘What is the way to reach out to them? Is it nice by video? Is it nice by email?’ There’s many things to think about when you do a partnership because it’s not only about someone to place the sticker on the car,” he explains.

“The sticker is the validation of the partnership. But everything you do around to activate that sticker, that’s the most important. The sticker is the least difficult part of the whole partnership.”

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

One could think that having proved his speed across four seasons with midfield teams in F2, it was already time to move on. However, Verschoor felt that the stellar performances achieved along the way were not enough, and wanted to have a last crack at the championship.

With the funding secured on time, he could properly prepare the 2025 campaign with series frontrunner MP, already starting with the team in the last two rounds of 2024. The title escaped him in the end, but he came third in the standings. Along the way, he has amassed two feature race victories, two sprint wins and two more podiums. And now he has been signed by McLaren to its driver development programme. 

“I don’t have the feeling that what I’ve showed in F2 before this year has been the way it should have been. I feel like I could have performed much better. Or many times when I did perform, the results were taken away because of disqualifications. And therefore, in the end the points were not good enough.

“I finished 11th, 12th, ninth, eighth. If you count the points of course without disqualifications. Of course a crash or a mistake, I don’t count those. But just disqualifications, I should have been sixth in my first year with Trident in 2022, without the disqualification in Austria. That would have been quite a good result. But I was 12th because of it.”

Additionally, Verschoor addresses the topic of why some talented drivers keep returning to an expensive series like F2 instead of looking elsewhere after one or two years in the championship.

“Some people think ‘fine, if you have that kind of budget spend on another category and you have the same budget’. But it doesn’t work that way.

“All the people that gave me this budget, I’ve been selling my dream to become a F2 champion and potentially an F1 driver. So it’s not true that I would have had the same budget if I would have done another category.

“It’s much harder to find budget for IndyCar, for example. Because which Dutch company has interest in the US? Not many. A few, but not many. So it’s much more difficult than what many people think.”

In the end, when drivers rely on sponsors’ money to earn a race seat, the series chosen very much depends on the funders’ interests. Otherwise, the budget would not be available.

Some may well doubt the value of results after so many years in the category. However, experienced drivers still have to prove themselves every time they are out on track against highly talented and very well prepared rookies in what is an unpredictable championship. Thus, there is still value to those victories that will help enterprising drivers like Verschoor to “do deals” in the future.

The post How Richard Verschoor made a success of self-managing his career appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: McLaren

McLaren has announced the addition of two Formula 2 stars and a top karter to its driver development programme.

Two days after their fates in F2’s title fight were settled, Leonardo Fornaroli and Richard Verschoor join McLaren’s junior ranks.

Fornaroli was crowned champion with a round remaining in the feature race at Losail, and Verschoor was in title contention until that point and now sits third in the standings.

Following that race, Fornaroli told media including Formula Scout that it would be two weeks before his future racing plans were announced, while the self-managed Verschoor said he already knew how we would spend 2026 too.

There have been four race victories so far for Fornaroli in his triumphant rookie F2 season, which comes after he was a win-free 2024 FIA Formula 3 champion as a sophomore. He was 11th in FIA F3’s 2023 standings, and eighth in the 2022 Formula Regional European Championship. In 2026, he will be a test and development driver for McLaren’s Formula 1 team.

“I’m incredibly proud to be joining the MDDP after another successful year on track,” said the 20-year-old Italian.

“Winning both the FIA F3 and F2 titles has been an important step in my journey, and I’m motivated to take the next step in my development through the programme as I work toward my ultimate goal of racing at the highest level. I’m very grateful to McLaren for this opportunity, and to everyone who has supported me throughout my career so far.”

Verschoor has also won four races in 2025 but is a fifth-year driver in F2. He had won once in each of his previous seasons, and never come higher than eighth in the standings despite three 100-plus point campaigns.

In F3 he won the Macau Grand Prix, but only had two podiums across two-and-a-half GP3/FIA F3 Championship seasons.

“It’s a special moment [to join the MDDP], and I’m grateful for McLaren’s support in allowing me to continue my development within the programme,” said the 24-year-old Dutchman.

The MDDP’s third signing is Christian Costoya, the 2025 CIK-FIA European Karting and WSK Euro Series champion, and WSK Super Master Series runner-up on OK karts.

He was European championship runner-up at the junior level, and has recently done Formula 4 tests with Prema. Next month he makes his single-seater racing debut in F4 United Arab Emirates.

“I’m very excited to join the MDDP and become part of their talent pipeline,” the 15-year-old Spaniard said. “It is great to get the team’s support and be in an environment that is known for developing great drivers.”

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, head of the MDDP since this January, added “all three talented drivers have shown great racecraft with multiple wins this season, alongside a number of impressive performances in their respective championships” and they will be supported “to provide options for all of our expanding racing teams” in F1, IndyCar and the World Endurance Championship. That means “a wide range of testing and progression opportunities” with those squads.

The post McLaren signs F2 champion Fornaroli and rival Verschoor as juniors appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor boosted his Formula 2 title chances by winning the sprint race at Losail.

A slow start from reversed-grid pole by Verschoor meant he lost the lead to AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen on lap one of 23.

There was 0.9 seconds between the pair before Verschoor began closing back in and he reclaimed the lead down the pit straight as lap four began.

The slipstream at that moment helped him then set the fastest lap and he escaped DRS range within a lap. It took another five for his lead to double to two seconds, and he consistently added to his gap.

Verschoor was on course to lower his fastest lap benchmark on lap 14 before the safety car came out and put Duerksen back on his tail. Trident’s Laurens van Hoepen and James Wharton had been battling at the bottom of the field and an incident at turn one sent debutant Wharton into retirement.

Seven drivers took the opportunity to pit, switching from Pirelli’s hard compound tyres to the softs, and within that group was DAMS’ Kush Maini who then came to a stop on track and prolonged the safety car period.

Racing resumed on lap 17, and Verschoor was unchallenged. He was able to lower his own pace as he built a 2.4s lead before the safety car returned on lap 20 due to AIX Racing’s Cian Shields spinning and then getting stranded on track.

One lap remained when green flags waved again, and Verschoor again had enough in hand to prevent Duerksen from attacking.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez and Campos Racing’s debutant Nikola Tsolov had started on the front row, with Tsolov passing for third on lap one. They went wheel-to-wheel again on the final lap and Tsolov came off worse, dropping to 10th. Villagomez returned to third, ahead of Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne.

Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli grew his points lead over DAMS’ Jak Crawford by finishing sixth, two places ahead of his rival, with Verschoor now a further eight points back and ahead of Hitech GP’s Luke Browning who started 18th and finished 17th. Dunne also remains in title contention, but is 57 points behind.

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins started eighth, lost two places on lap one and then on lap 12 ran wide at turn one and conceded two more positions. He could only gain back one place, from Prema’s Gabriele Mini on lap 18.

Roman Stanek was the top pitter. The Invicta driver fell from seventh to 15th by stopping, recovered one place from van Hoepen losing ground on the first restart then another when ART GP’s Ritomo Miyata was shuffled down the order on the next lap.

Race results (23 laps)

The post Verschoor boosts F2 title hopes by winning Losail sprint race appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Richard Verschoor topped Formula 2’s 45-minute free practice session at Monza, which was ended early by Joshua Duerksen crashing.

AIX Racing driver Duerksen posted the first flying lap nine minutes in, a 1m34.847s, and Trident’s Max Esterson soon beat him by 0.039 seconds.

Invicta Racing’s Roman Stanek and Hitech GP’s Dino Beganovic were third and fourth, until ART Grand Prix’s Ritomo Miyata set a 1m34.262s to go fastest. He was then sandwiched by DAMS drivers, as Kush Maini lowered the pace to 1m34.064s and Jak Crawford went third fastest. At this point Rodin Motorsport and MP Motorsport’s drivers were without laptimes.

When Rodin’s drivers headed out, they swiftly entered the top 10. Dunne set a 1m34.661s almost 13 minutes in that put him fourth. That very quickly became 10th place, as Beganovic, Pepe Marti (Campos Racing) and Gabriele Mini (Prema) broke into the 1m33s, Arvid Lindlad (Campos) went fourth fastest and Trident’s Esterson and Sami Meguetounif also beat him.

When the next group of cars crossed the line, Maini reclaimed top spot with a 1m33.302s and Miyata and Crawford joined the group to lap sub-1m34s.

MP’s drivers took to the track a third of the way through practice, as many rivals returned to the pits.

Dunne got within 0.285s of Maini’s pace 16 minutes in, and Duerksen was just 0.031s slower than him in third.

They were then bettered by Lindblad and Beganovic, both lapping in the 1m33.5s, and a minute later Crawford and Miyata got within 0.163s of Maini. Verschoor and MP team-mate Oliver Goethe went 15th and 18th fastest with their first flying laps.

As practice’s 20-minute mark approached, Hitech’s Luke Browning reduced Maini’s gap to 0.108s, and Dunne improved to fifth.

Lindblad returned to second a minute later, 0.068s off Maini, and Crawford set a 1m33.406s in third. MP’s pace was now being displayed, as Verschoor and Goethe both posted 1m33.4s in fifth and seventh.

Maini showed he had pace in hand by setting a 1m33.047s at the session’s halfway point, before the track became quieter.

Those who stayed out improved, with Dunne posting a 1m33.304s to return to second for one minute. Beganovic usurped him, setting a 1m33.190s, but by the time he had exited the first chicane Verschoor had beaten him by 0.071s.

Goethe crossed the line a few seconds later and toppled Maini with a 1m33.017s on his fresher tyres. Two laps later Verschoor lowered the pace to 1m32.547s, leading Goethe by 0.154s.

ART GP’s Victor Martins jumped up to third with a 1m33.091s, and held it until Lindblad bettered him by 0.075s with 10 minutes to go.

The top two were in the pits as a flurry of improvements came six minutes from the end. Dunne, Maini, Browning and Beganovic went sub-1m33s, and later on Martins joined their group in fifth place.

Yellows flags were waving, but Browning and Dunne were able to go second and third fastest with 1m32.6s laps before session-ending red flags waved as Duerksen went into the barriers at the Ascari chicane.

Free practice results

The post Verschoor fastest, Duerksen crashes, Fornaroli slowest in F2 practice appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: MP Motorsport

Richard Verschoor will have a new black livery on his MP Motorsport Formula 2 car for the rest of this season after running overweight.

The patriotic colours have been swapped on the MP design, creating a mostly black with orange highlights look that is similar to that of fellow Dutch outfit, Van Amersfoort Racing.

However, a closer look reveals that the black sections are mostly unpainted carbonfibre in an attempt to reduce weight, much like several Formula 1 teams have done over recent seasons.

The strategy behind the change was confirmed by Verschoor on social media.

“Due to the unfortunate fact that the car’s weight added to my weight is currently far above the minimum limit, we decided to adjust our livery to reduce the total weight,” he said.

”I’ve also been working hard to lose some weight myself, even though there’s not much more I can do given my height.

“Being tall shouldn’t be a disadvantage. In my opinion it makes more sense to simply raise the minimum weight? I don’t know but what I do know is that this livery is fire.”

According to heights listed on the championship website, Verschoor is the tallest driver in the current F2 field at 187 centimetres (6’2”), which also makes him taller than any driver presently in Formula 1.

The sister MP car of Oliver Goethe is expected be unchanged, given that it has been running in a Red Bull livery.

Verschoor follows Formula 3 driver Ugo Ugochukwu in making a mid-season livery change this year to save weight.

The American, measured at 192cm (6’4”), gave up the orange paint on his McLaren-style livery to run an all-black livery from round six in Austria, which allowed him to meet the weight limit and coincided with an upturn in form.

Attempts to accommodate taller drivers have been a feature of recent single-seater designs. The minimum weight in F3 was also increased from 722 kilograms to 725kg in an update to the technical regulations published prior to the Spa-Francorchamps round.

The post Verschoor gets new livery to shed weight in F2 title fight appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Formula 2’s points leader Richard Verschoor has confirmed that this season, his fifth in the championship, will be his last.

The MP Motorsport driver moved to the top of the standings by winning the Red Bull Ring feature race, and two seventh places at Silverstone last weekend means he leads by six points.

While his focus is on keeping up his strong F2 form, Verschoor has also taken steps to prepare himself for a future outside of Formula 1’s support paddock. Across his first four F2 campaigns he claimed four wins and 10 other podiums.

“I don’t want to be racing in F2 next season,” the 24-year-old told Formula Scout. “This is my last season for sure. I’m looking at multiple options for next year.”

One of those is Formula E, which Verschoor has been “excited” by the evolution of and says “it’s definitely an interesting championship looking at the level of the drivers”.

“I also saw what they are planning in the future with the new cars and the new Gen4 and I think it’s very cool.”

Verschoor has started to utilise the experience of a ‘well-connected’ figure to help open doors outside of F2 and further his career.

“I just have someone looking out for me, nothing is officially sealed yet. He is helping me to look for other opportunities as he knows a lot of people and hopefully he knows the right people for me.”

The Dutchman also has a long-term view on how to establish himself in another championship.

“I would like to be building my future with a specific team or manufacturer so we are looking at our options but its not so straightforward,” he said.

“It’s always tough for me because I just don’t have a lot of budget, which makes it sometimes quite hard if you’re competing with people that can bring a lot of money. And sometimes that’s a bit annoying.”

Speaking to media including Formula Scout ahead of taking the points lead, Verschoor reflected on his 2025 F2 form and his new career support:

“I really hope and think generally that we can keep this going. It hasn’t been luck, the last six rounds, so I think we’ve been really performing well, mainly in the races. From my side, I have to improve qualifying. So I will work on that personally.

“Then regarding my future, I’m looking at all the options. I finally have someone that’s looking out for me, so hopefully that helps a bit. I realised, of course, that it’s very hard to keep doing everything by yourself. And if you have someone that knows a lot of people and a lot of teams, that it’s better to have someone looking out for you. So I’m really happy with that, and what roads I will take [thanks to that].”

Additional reporting by Alejandro Alonso Lopez

The post F2 leader Verschoor confirms this season will be his last appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Halfway through F2’s season, disparity between teams’ qualifying and race pace has set up a great title fight

Since the Dallara F2 2024’s introduction, Formula 1’s primary feeder series has become less predictable and the championship table has been less representative of teams’ competitiveness let alone the difference between drivers’ abilities.

There have been different approaches to getting the most out of Formula 2’s current chassis, and the upheaval of the pecking order that took place during the first year of its use has roughly continued into 2025.

Last weekend’s Red Bull Ring round marked the halfway point of the season, and the track was a perfect example of set-up variation. The high-speed, undulating corners mean downforce should be the priority, but most of the connecting parts are also acceleration zones so straightline speed is key too and that required low drag to be prioritised instead.

The influence of engine power and aerodynamics, particularly downforce since it is a low-pressure area underneath the car compared to the higher pressure air above, also takes on a different value at the Red Bull Ring since the circuit is at high altitude where air pressure everywhere is lower.

After filling the top three places in qualifying, Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli, ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins and MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor spoke to media including Formula Scout about the set-up differences currently seen in F2.

“I’ve been in a few different teams, and it’s true that there are many different philosophies in between teams,” said Verschoor.

“Some people focus more on the mechanical grip of the car. Some teams focus more on the downforce. So far I’ve been very strong on all the tracks that require a bit more downforce from the car. But you can see it from different teams, how they are performing. If it’s one car only on top or if there’s two cars in the front.”

Absolute pace

Third-year F2 driver Martins said ART GP has “been really strong in qualifying”, and the data backs that up as on average he is the quickest driver on single-lap pace in 2025.

“I felt really comfortable reaching the limits with the car and I’m extracting the most out of it. So definitely the car suits me for qualifying. And in the race I feel also like the [pace] was really strong. Some tracks we had a bit more tyre degradation, so maybe we are more aggressive on certain things.”

He added: “I will just try to maximise what I have every time, and give the team some good feedback to just focus on the right things. But definitely we have different philosophies [between teams].”

Martins noted that once he and his engineers are able to spot where rivals are quicker in different types of corners, it is not a case of trying to emulate their pace through going into the unknown on set-up but rather “you need to adapt to the car you have and stick with [your philosophy]”.

Fornaroli, an F2 rookie who has two poles already, has found Invicta revises the set-up more around its drivers than the other way around. ART GP’s comparative rigorousness may be due to Martins’ experience and past success in F2, since he knows better how to revise his driving to maximise to suit the parameters the car is set up to.

However it’s also down to ART GP prioritising set-ups that put Martins as far up the grid as possible, with a race pace cost. Cars can not only be optimised towards the grip levels of one tyre compound over another, but also based on what feedback a compound provides in qualifying – where there can be cooldown laps between flying laps – rather than over a whole stint.

Since Pirelli does not bring all compounds to every round, some data to inform set-up choices can only be accumulated later in the season and at a point where racing on two or three weekends in a row puts time constraints on what can be learned away from the track.

“[Invicta] have a very open mind. They work very well with the drivers,” explained Fornaroli. “They’re happy to follow their requests, with the car. And we are always super strong in qualifying. It was always very comfortable with the car. Sometimes we struggled a bit in the high-deg tracks, especially in the sprint race, but then in the feature race we were always doing a very good step forward.”

In response to another question in Austria, Verschoor explained how driver feedback is converted into set-up changes by MP.

“After free practice, you just say what you think about the car, about how the car’s handling, and what you would like to improve. And then it’s kind of up to them. Of course you do it in speaking together, but it’s up to them then in what to do with the car. Because there’s many, many things you can change on an F2 car. More than many people think.

“Usually they ask me ‘oh, you have the same car, the same engine, and the gearbox, so it should be all the same’. But there’s actually a lot you can change, and any change you do has a positive and a negative. So that’s why the communication is very important because I know from my experience certain things on the car to change them, which I like, and some of them I don’t like. That’s why I like the fact that the team is really trusting in my feedback, and I think that helps us moving forward much quicker.”

Martins has not topped qualifying overall this year, although was quickest in his group in Monaco, yet with the exception of Barcelona has been within 0.15% of the pole pace at every circuit. He was 15th fastest at Barcelona, behind his frequently struggling team-mate Ritomo Miyata, and that lowered his average feature race grid position from 2.0 to 3.86 and his average deficit to the pole pace from an incredible 0.055% to 0.161%.

That latter figure is still the benchark though, and puts him in good stead for Silverstone this weekend. Last year a driver had to be within 0.253% of the pole pace to qualify second, and it just happens that Martins was on the front row in 2024.

Rolling race pace average

But at this point last season he was 17th in the standings, had completed the least laps of any full-time drivers, and was the 12th fastest driver on average when it came to one-lap pace. The benchmark driver, marginally, was MP’s Dennis Hauger and he was seventh in the points at the time. He ended the season in 11th while Martins rose to seventh in the points table.

Right now, Martins is ninth in the standings and also ninth on the other important performance metric: race pace.

Once again, he is being let down by a lack of race running. The Melbourne feature race he was supposed to start on pole for (after Prema’s Gabriele Mini got a grid penalty) was cancelled, he crashed out on lap two of the sprint race the day before and in the Monaco feature race he led the field into the opening corner where he was hit out.

Despite his super strong qualifying form, he has only scored 35 points in feature races this season. A third place finish in Jeddah, his only podium of 2025, contributed 15 of those points and only last weekend did his combined score from the other feature races surpass that.

Bad luck and mistakes aside, Invicta has had a similar issue with a car generally set up for qualifying success, ill-equipped for the pack racing common in sprint races and then only strong on one tyre compound in the feature races.

Fornaroli, on average the third fastest driver in 2025 on one-lap pace, very rarely has the pace to move forward in races but because he starts so high up a relative lack of race pace (he’s 11th fastest on average) is masked and therefore he still brings home a healthy amount of feature race points and on four occasions has come seventh (worth two points) in the sprint races.

Invicta team-mate Roman Stanek is on average the ninth fastest driver on single-lap pace, with no other team having both of their drivers that high up. But Stanek is 16th on the rolling race pace average, and almost doubled his 2025 points tally last weekend with third place and the fastest lap in the sprint race then coming eighth the next day.

Laps led (excl. safety car periods)

1 Crawford 57   =2 Duerksen & Verschoor 46   4 Maini 40   5 Dunne 38   6 Fornaroli 24   7 Lindblad 22   8 Marti 20   9 Beganovic 13   10 Montoya 8   11 Browning 3   =12 Martins & Miyata 2

Podiums

=1 Browning & Verschoor 5   =3 Crawford, Dunne & Fornaroli 4   =6 Lindblad & Marti 3   =8 Beganovic, Montoya & Duerksen 2   =11 Martins, Mini, Maini, Villagomez & Stanek 1

Race laps completed

1 Stanek 363   2 Goethe 362   3 Maini 361   4 Fornaroli 358   5 Dunne 347   6 Verschoor 344   7 Lindblad, Browning & Beganovic 336   10 Montoya 335   11 Marti 333   12 Cordeel 332   13 Villagomez 329   14 Duerksen 326   15 Martins 325   16 Esterson 319   17 Bennett 316   18 Crawford 309  19 Miyata 307   20 Meguetounif 305  21 Shields 300  22 Mini 297

[Teams] Laps led (excl. safety car periods)

1 DAMS 97   =2 AIX Racing & MP Motorsport 46   4 Campos Racing 42   5 Rodin Motorsport 38   6 Invicta Racing 24   7 Hitech GP 16   8 Prema 8   9 ART Grand Prix 4   10 Trident 12x 2nd   11 Van Amersfoort Racing 17x 3rd

[Teams] Race laps completed

1 Invicta 721   2 MP 706   3 DAMS 670   4 Rodin 679   5 Hitech 672   6 Campos 669   7 VAR 645   =8 Prema & ART GP 632   10 AIX 626   11 Trident 624

He would have to double his points haul again and then score some more to even reach Martins in the standings, and it’s not like he has been without the opportunity to since Stanek has completed more laps in races this year than anyone else.

“I’m very happy that we finally managed to get some silverware, but also at the same time I think it’s we could have had this already before,” Stanek said after taking his first podium of 2025.

For the second half of the season, being consistently competitive is his target. But applying that to single-lap pace and his long-run averages is easier said than done.

“I have a feeling that in F2 qualifying and the race, they are two different sports. Because one time you drive completely on the limit, and the other one you just have to take care of the tyres like a little baby in the hands.

“[I’m] just trying to improve my race pace overall, which is going in the right direction. I know it’s my third year in F2, but the level is very high.”

There are some drivers whose race pace has been better than their qualifying pace, and put them in a higher placing. Verschoor now leads the championship by 24 points, but is the sixth fastest driver on one-lap pace so far. Without a lap one retirement in the Monaco feature race, he would have been gaining on average more than 2.5 places per race.

While his latest win in the Red Bull Ring feature race was a conventional one, he was victorious in the Jeddah feature race by using the alternate strategy of a long first stint on the medium compound tyres then making a very late switch to Pirelli’s supersoft rubber. The day before a five-second penalty had cost him the sprint race win, and he was the fastest driver over a 10-lap run on both days.

The only other driver to be the benchmark on race pace more than once this year is DAMS’ Jak Crawford, and he did at Barcelona where Verschoor’s other victory came. In the sprint race, Verschoor pitted from eighth during a late safety car period and with a grip advantage on a circuit that was punishing the tyres he charged through to the front.

Crawford had led almost the whole race and finished fourth behind two other pitters, then the next day he was fourth again but was rapidly closing in on second and third before a safety car period that ran to the end.

While Crawford has taken two wins and finished no lower than sixth in the last eight races he has contested, he didn’t score in the first two rounds and is behind 17 drivers in race laps completed.

The American, another of the third-year drivers whose experience of the previous F2 car seems to have served them well in the races where tyre management has been most prominent, is third in the standings, eighth on single-lap pace, seventh on race pace and has comfortably led more racing laps than anyone else.

There are two rookies who also need to be mentioned: Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne.

Based on the data, it looks like Campos has done the best job of getting up to pace quickly with the new Dallara F3 2025 car in the FIA Formula 3 Championship and similarly did the same in F2 last year.

There’s been some silly rookie errors by Dunne and Lindblad, but both have been so fast that their names have become buzzwords in the F1 paddock and are both now participating in tests and free practice sessions at the top level.

Dunne is Martins’ closest rival in single-lap pace, and similarly the only time he has topped qualifying was in his Monaco group. He denied Martins pole by 0.003 seconds.

Photo: Red Bull

Lindblad is the fourth fastest on average, and had pole at Barcelona but took a while to find out how to extract the maximum from the car and navigate busy sessions as he qualified 14th and 16th in the first two rounds.

He took to races immediately though, aided by the competitiveness of Campos’s package. The 17-year-old finished on average six places higher than he started across his first four races, and his race pace has been the best in the field so far.

Dunne’s disqualification from the Red Bull Ring feature race due to excessive plank wear means his pace en route to second place on-the-road is not included in his average, but the 19-year-old is still sixth overall.

Having gone into last weekend first and third in the points table, Dunne and Lindblad left it in second and sixth. How they handle the heat — of the title fight, the glare of the F1 media machine and with Pirelli’s delicate tyres while racing in a European heatwave — in the months ahead will determine whether they remain the two names with the most attention or if those mentioned further up become hotter property through their F2 performances.

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