20. Mattia Colnaghi

Up 9 • Followed Spanish F4 title with Eurocup-3 glory

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull

With two titles in as many years in single-seaters, it’s no wonder that Colnaghi was snapped up by Red Bull before he even had this year’s Eurocup-3 crown in the bag.

After overhauling more experienced competition to become Spanish Formula 4 champion last year, the Italo-Argentine driver had to settle for being runner-up to fellow graduate and MP Motorsport team-mate Maciej Gladysz in Eurocup-3’s winter series at the start of 2025 after a disastrous double non-score in the deciding round.

He started the main campaign with a pole, win and fastest lap at the Red Bull Ring, but was only on the podium twice more across the first nine races, and was trailing Red Bull-backed rookie Ernesto Rivera at the top of the standings at the halfway mark.

After that though, while Rivera was wildly inconsistent – scoring just three times in the last nine races – Colnaghi was never off the podium and put the title out of the reach of the more experienced Valerio Rinicella and Kacper Sztuka with a round to go.

Colnaghi missed the final round to test himself against a deeper field at the Macau Grand Prix, proving his class with an impressive run with with PHM Racing to fourth in the main race as leading rookie.

19. Caio Collet

Up 7 • Indy Nxt runner-up secured a seat in the top tier

Photo: James Black

Photo: Travis Hinkle

Third in Indy Nxt as a rookie in 2024, Collet came into 2025 with his sights set firmly on the title, but had the misfortune to come up against the toughest of newcomers in Dennis Hauger.

Given how well proven Formula 2 drivers have adapted to IndyCar over recent years, Hauger came in arguably overqualified, and Collet and his HMD Motorsports team were left scratching their heads wondering how to keep up with the Andretti driver’s early pace.

They kept plugging away at it though and a breakthrough finally came mid-season at Road America, where Collet put a pass on Hauger to take his first win in nearly a year.

That didn’t exactly open the floodgates, but Collet did convert two pole positions into two victories at Laguna Seca, with a retirement for Hauger there keeping the title alive. Collet made it three poles in a row next time out at Portland, only for Hauger to this time overtake for victory, putting the title pretty much out of sight.

Most importantly though, Collet gets to join his rival on the IndyCar grid next year.

18. Fionn McLaughlin

New entry • Car racing rookie won British F4 title

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Signed up by Red Bull through its revived Driver Search shootout last year, McLaughlin became by modern standards a relatively late starter in car racing at the start of 2025 at the ripe old age of 17, but he quickly made up for any lost time.

Driving with Hitech GP, he was a frontrunner from the off in the Formula Winter Series, taking a win on his debut weekend on the Algarve and adding two more victories at Motorland Aragon to finish third in the standings.

In British F4, it took him nine races to win, but was never outside of the points over the next three rounds as he traded the championship lead with second year racer Martin Molnar.

McLaughlin’s win in an eventful third race at Zandvoort, when Molnar was among those involved in contact, would prove pivotal. He dropped some points too over the following rounds, but still did enough to ease away in the title race.

There might have been some doubts about the level in British F4 this year, with other drivers holding Formula 1 connections unable to do what McLaughlin did and live up to their hype, but he confirmed his potential at the FIA F4 World Cup in Macau.

Mechanical issues prevented him from doing any proper laps in practice, but he qualified sixth and went on to challenge for the win in the qualification race, only to hit the wall out of second place just a few corners from the end.

17. Enzo Deligny

New entry • The fastest driver in Formula Regional Europe

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

Deligny had lost the backing of Red Bull after a disappointing first season in the Formula Regional European Championship in 2024, but put that behind him with a much stronger 2025 campaign in which he was statistically the quickest driver on the always-competitive grid.

The French-Chinese driver remained with R-ace GP for a second season and team boss Thibaut de Merindol saw a big step in his maturity.

Marginally quicker than eventual champion Freddie Slater on qualifying performance across the year, Deligny claimed four pole positions and four victories during the season. The latter allowed him to finish third in the championship on countback against Pedro Clerot, who was more consistent but won only twice.

That inconsistency prevented him putting up a stronger challenge against Slater in the championship and there was still the odd wild moment, such as disqualification from third place at the Hungaroring for driving erratically on the slow-down lap.

Overall though we saw a much-improved Deligny this year, capped by a clean run to third at the Macau Grand Prix.

16. Dino Beganovic

Up 3 • First F2 campaign featured a pole and a win

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Beganovic wasn’t a factor in the Formula 2 championship fight like some of his fellow rookies were, but he certainly showed strong progression.

Having scored points just four times in the first half of the season, he did so 11 times out of 14 in the second half.

This not to say that the Ferrari junior was lacking performance in the early part of the year. He qualified fifth for the cancelled season-opening feature race in Melbourne, and by round four at Imola had put his Hitech car on pole position. He finished that race third, jumped by team-mate Luke Browning after being delayed in his pit-stop before the red-hot Alex Dunne passed both.

While Browning was now firmly in the tight fight, it took Beganovic longer to consistently find his feet, but fourth in the Silverstone feature race began a more competitive sequence of results. His season – which included two F1 practice runs for Ferrari – peaked on the streets of Baku, where he won the sprint race and came third in the feature race.

15. Thomas Strauven

New entry • Superior in winter and summer in Spanish F4

Photo: Spanish Winter Championship

Photo: Campos Racing

The standing and depth of the Spanish F4 championship seems to improve with every season that passes, making Strauven’s dominance of the series in 2025 all the more impressive.

There didn’t seem to be much to separate Strauven and Campos Racing team-mate Jan Przyrowski in terms of pace in the three-round winter championship at the start of the year, with the Belgian’s better consistency helping him to take the title.

The same trend was amplified in the main championship. Strauven had an early edge in qualifying, starting on pole for six of the first eight races, during which time Przyrowski matched him for wins with three apiece. But Strauven was only off the podium once in that time, and already opening up his championship lead.

While Przyrowski then started the next seven races from pole, he didn’t win again. Strauven on the other hand ended the season with a total of 10 wins and seven other podiums from the 21 races, and 157 points more than his nearest rival – which wasn’t Przyrowski but rookie compatriot Ean Eyckmans.

14. Arvid Lindblad

Down 3 • FROC title and early F2 promise were key to F1 chance

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: TGR NZ

Lindblad ends this year with arguably the best prize of any driver on this list, as the only one who will be an F1 driver in 2026.

He took an important step towards that already in the first six weeks of the year when he won the Formula Regional Oceania Championship, giving him enough points for a superlicence. In truth, his prior record was a clear cut above the rest of what wasn’t the strongest field ever assembled in New Zealand, but stepping down a level and getting the job done under scrutiny and pressure is sometimes easier said than done.

Getting it done meant he could step up to F2 with less pressure to achieve results; valuable in the context of the struggles other highly rated drivers have had at that level.

Still, Lindblad did adapt impressively, which likely helped lead the FIA to grant special dispensation for him to receive his superlicence already at the age of 17.

That decision came less than two weeks after he won the Barcelona feature race from pole position. Including that result, across his first six rounds in F2, Lindblad had also won the Jeddah sprint race, come second in the Imola sprint and scored in all but one race.

At this stage he was third in the championship, just eight points from the lead, but he would score only seven times in the last 14 races and end up sixth in the standings. It was a tailing off that mirrored his previous campaigns in FIA Formula 3 and Italian F4, but it’s his quick adaptation at such a young age that should bode well for his next step.

13. Matteo De Palo

New entry • FREC’s surprise Slater challenger 

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: ACI Sport

De Palo was arguably the biggest surprise package anywhere in junior single-seater racing in 2025.

That’s not to say that his potential had not been completely hidden previously, because his run to fifth in Spanish F4 as a car racing rookie in 2023 certainly showed promise. But there was little in his rookie FREC campaign in 2024 with Sainteloc Racing, finishing 17th in the standings, to put him among the favourites starting this season. After all, his new team Trident had yet to take a driver to victory in three previous seasons in the series.

Together, they put that right in race one at Misano. Maybe more surprising than that home victory was that it wasn’t a flash in the pan.

De Palo’s early 25-point advantage over Prema’s well-prepared Slater was eradicated in only five races, only for the Roman to go and win the next race at the Hungaroring. Slater started to pull away mid-season, but de Palo capitalised on two consecutive non-scores for his rival with a third win of his own at the Red Bull Ring to get in front again. They traded places again either wide of de Palo’s fourth win at Barcelona and he stayed close until the Monza decider, which he had entered only four points adrift.

Newly signed to McLaren’s driver development programme, de Palo’s first weekend in Papaya was underwhelming after a one-off switch to R-ace GP, but it’s with Trident that he steps up to FIA F3 next year – as Slater’s team-mate.

12. Mari Boya

Re-entry • New Aston junior came third in F3, second in Macau

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

49th in this list in 2023, when he was Eurocup-3 runner-up alongside his rookie season in FIA F3, it’s rare for a driver to stay in the latter series for a third season and rarer still for them to then make as positive an impression as Boya did in 2025.

The Spaniard’s appointment as an Aston Martin F1 junior in the middle of the year appeared to be one of the more left-field such signings, but it seemed to help him take a step forward.

At the time, six rounds into the season, he had been sixth in the standings with a couple of third-places to his name in the Monaco and Red Bull Ring feature races. So far, so solid. Next time out at Silverstone he won the feature race, having already finished third in the sprint race.

A second place would come later in the Hungaroring feature race and he ended the year third in the championship – and as the second-highest scorer in feature races.

Boya also made his experience count at the Macau Grand Prix to challenge for victory, ultimately finishing second.

11. Max Garcia

Up 31 • Prodigious rise continues with USF Pro 2000 title

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Garcia will still only be 16 years old when he makes his Indy Nxt debut next year after winning back-to-back titles on the IndyCar ladder.

While his USF2000 title in 2024 was hard-fought against several other drivers, with five wins from 18 races, his run to the USF Pro 2000 crown was far more dominant with nine victories from the same number of opportunities. He was on the podium in all but five races.

Such consistency was highly valuable. As an example, Alessandro de Tullio had three poles and three wins from the first four races, but the rest of his campaign was far more hit and miss and he finished fourth, 153 points behind Garcia.

Round three’s triple header at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was particularly wild and Garcia wasn’t able to avoid being involved, but he still finished all three races in the top four and increased his points lead over de Tullio from 16 to 57.

Written by Peter Allen

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2025: 20-11 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: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull

Arvid Lindblad hoped for more from his 2025 Formula 2 campaign, even though he did enough to land a promotion to Formula 1.

This was just Lindblad’s third full year in single-seater racing, having stepped up from karting to Formula 4 after his 15th birthday in the middle of 2022.

Rather like his full campaigns in Italian F4 and FIA Formula 3, his F2 season with Campos Racing showed strong early promise. He won the sprint race at round three in Jeddah and triumphed in just his fifth feature race at Barcelona from pole position.

By this point he was third in the championship, just eight points from the lead and ahead of eventual champion Leonardo Fornaroli, but any thoughts of a title challenge would fade and he ended the year sixth in the standings after collecting a third win in the Abu Dhabi sprint race.

“Going into the year, I sort of set goals for myself,” said the 18-year-old, who will drive for Racing Bulls in F1 in 2026. “They weren’t really outcome goals though. I didn’t say I want to finish here in the championship or whatever, because it’s always very difficult to do beforehand.

“And also, in my circumstance, I came into this year having just done one year of F4, one year of F3. Three years ago, I was doing my last race in karting. So I’ve come through the ranks very quickly and I didn’t really set such goals going into the year. But I knew what was possible. Obviously the team did an amazing job with Isack [Hadjar] last year.

“Reflecting back, I’m not entirely happy with how the year has gone. I think there has been a lot of good moments, but I’m not super happy with how it’s gone. I’m very happy that I’ve got the opportunity next year, but, no I would have hoped that it had gone a little bit better.”

Asked where he felt his season had been hampered, he said: “The year was going really well up until Barcelona. We were fast throughout, but I was doing a few too many mistakes, there were some things out of our control, and there was a really nice sort of progression up to that point.

“And then sort of through the remainder of the European leg, we were just slow. We struggled for pace, there was mistakes on my side, and then also a bit on the team. But as a package we weren’t competitive. And there’s still question marks we have on that.

“There’s definitely things that I could have done better to help. But at the end of the day I’m just not happy that we weren’t more competitive for more of the season. I feel like too many times I’ve been competing on Saturday and not on Sunday.”

The post Lindblad “not super happy” with F2 season despite reaching F1 goal appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull

Newly signed Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad scored his third Formula 2 victory in the Abu Dhabi sprint race, as Campos Racing team-mate Nikola Tsolov netted a maiden podium.

Lindblad held the lead from reversed-grid pole position at the start ahead of Joshua Duerksen, while Victor Martins was slow away from third and fell to fifth, which became sixth later around the first lap after Dino Beganovic had elbowed him wide exiting Turn 7.

Although Lindblad set a new fastest lap on the fifth tour he couldn’t break over a second clear of Duerksen, until a virtual safety car was required on lap eight when John Bennet’s engine appeared to give up in smoky fashion on the approach to Turn 5.

The gap between Lindblad and Duerksen was just half a second after the restart on the following lap, but Duerksen ran wide and off track just a few corners later in Turn 12 and fell to 1.5s behind the leader.

Lindblad soon increased his advantage up above two seconds. He appeared to have dealt with a further VSC interruption a couple of laps from the end that brought the gap down to 1.5s, only for it to then fall below a second on the penultimate lap. In the end, Lindblad held on to win by 0.9s.

Tsolov finished 8.6s further back in third as he finished on the podium on just his third F2 start.

He was never really troubled by Oliver Goethe, who was more preoccupied trying to keep Beganovic at bay. The Hitech driver eventually got by for fourth with a bold move around the Turn 9, despite a big lock-up on the brakes, with six laps remaining.

Jak Crawford spent the first half of the race where he started it in ninth but went on a charge in the closing stages. He passed Gabriele Mini on the outside in the Turn 6 chicane despite some wheel-to-wheel contact, and then edged Mini out onto the kerb exiting Turn 9, which sent the front of the Prema car into the air.

Crawford went on to breeze past Alex Dunne, who had risen from 11th to seventh at the start, before attempting to replicate his Mini move in Turn 6 on Martins. He lost part of his front wing as the pair made contact, but proceeded to pass Martins anyway into Turn 9 to finish sixth.

That strengthens Crawford’s hold on second place in the standings, opening up a three-point margin on Richard Verschoor who finished 12th, just behind Leonardo Fornaroli.

Race results (23 laps)

The post Lindblad claims third F2 win, Tsolov scores first podium in Abu Dhabi appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Four more young drivers have been named as getting time in contemporary Formula 1 machinery at Yas Marina Circuit over the next week.

The first opportunity comes tomorrow in free practice one for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, then next Tuesday is F1’s official young driver test.

For FP1, Alpine has called up reserve driver Paul Aron, while Red Bull Racing will run future Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad and that team has called up its test driver Ayumu Iwasa.

It had long been anticipated Aron would be back in the cockpit this weekend, since Alpine had stated earlier this year that after being loaned out to rival Sauber for two practice outings he would then have a further three with them.

“I’m looking forward to being back behind the wheel of the A525 this weekend,” said the 21-year-old, who came third in Formula 2 last year and has been focused on reserve driver duties through 2025.

“The [FP1] performances in Monza and Mexico City were very positive for my personal development as a driver and I’m looking forward to building on that for a final time this year.”

Iwasa graduated from the Red Bull Junior Team for 2025, but into a test driver role after Isack Hadjar beat him to a race seat at Racing Bulls. He has driven in three practice sessions for the team over the past two years, while also racing in the top-tier Super Formula championship at home in Japan.

In his rookie season he came fifth, and won the title this year but was overlooked by Racing Bulls for 2026 in favour of Lindblad. He concludes his rookie F2 season this weekend, and is in contention to come fifth in the points.

Lindblad started his single-seater career in 2022, and his F1 promotion was announced two days ago. Last year he was fourth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, and he began 2025 by winning the Formula Regional Oceania championship.

The latest additions from junior single-seaters to F1’s young driver test next week are Dino Beganovic and Kush Maini.

Beganovic is a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, and will test with the team after two practice call-ups in 2025. He is another F2 rookie, and sits eighth in the standings with one win so far.

Far more experienced in F2 is third-year driver Maini, who has also won in 2025 but languishes down in 15th in the points table. He will test with Alpine, who he is a reserve driver for.

“I can’t wait to take part in the post-season Abu Dhabi test and to have my first proper experience of the A525,” said the 25-year-old.

“Yas Marina Circuit is one I know well from F2 and it will be impressive to see the level of performance F1 cars have around this track. I’m very appreciative of the team for trusting me in this role and will aim to do the best job possible with the programme the team gives me.”

The post Aron, Beganovic, Lindblad and Maini to gain F1 mileage in Abu Dhabi appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Arvid Lindblad will complete a meteoric rise to Formula 1 when he lines up as a Racing Bulls driver in 2026, a little more than three years after his single-seater debut.

The 18-year-old, part of the Red Bull junior team since his penultimate year in karting in 2022, will be team-mate to Liam Lawson as Isack Hadjar moves to Red Bull Racing to partner Max Verstappen and his current team-mate Yuki Tsunoda becomes the reserve driver for the two squads.

Lindblad is currently a rookie in Formula 2, and sits sixth in the standings with one round remaining. He has won two races and taken two other podiums.

“I’d like to thank everyone at Racing Bulls for the opportunity. Since I started this journey at five years old, it was always my goal to be in F1 so it’s a proud moment to take this step,” said Lindblad.

“I’m extremely grateful to the Red Bull Junior programme and my personal team for their guidance, mentorship and belief; none of this would have been possible without their support. 2026 will be a big challenge and I know there’s a lot to learn, but I’m ready to work closely with the team and rise to it. I can’t wait to get started, it’s going to be an exciting year!”

The 18-year-old Anglo-Swede began his single-seater career with some Italian Formula 4 outings in 2022, then did the whole season in 2023 and came third in the standings. He was fourth in the sister E4 championship, fifth in F4 United Arab Emirates and won the Macau Grand Prix’s F4 support races.

In 2024 he stepped up to Formula Regional, coming 13th in the Middle East championship as a part-timer, then up to the FIA Formula 3 Championship where he won four races en route to fourth in the standings.

At the start of 2025, preceding his F2 graduation, he won the FRegional Oceania championship.

Alan Permane, Team Principal of Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, said:

“Arvid’s rapid progression marks him as one of the standout young talents in the sport,” Racing Bulls’ team principal Alan Permane commented.

“Together [with Lawson], they form a strong and dynamic pairing, one that embodies the ambition and youthful spirit of VCARB as we enter a transformative new era for F1.”

The post Arvid Lindblad to be F1 driver with Racing Bulls in 2026 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Red Bull Racing has announced it will hand Arvid Lindblad a second Formula 1 free practice outing at this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix.

The team handed Lindblad his F1 practice debut at the British Grand Prix in July, when he took over Yuki Tsunoda’s car. This time he will be in the Red Bull RB21 usually driven by Max Verstappen in FP1 on Friday afternoon.

Lindblad became a Red Bull Junior Team-supported driver at the start of 2021, a status he held through the last one-and-a-half years of his karting career before becoming a proper Red Bull junior when he switched to single-seaters in mid-2022.

The following year he came third in the Italian Formula 4 championship and won the Macau Grand Prix’s F4 support races, was in 2024 was 13th in Formula Regional Middle East then made another step up the ladder to FIA Formula 3 where he came fourth in the championship with four victories. Red Bull then immediately began preparing Lindblad for F1.

His first mileage in older machinery came in a 2024 demo on a stretch of an old IndyCar circuit, and he revealed to Formula Scout he drove in the testing of previous car (TPC) programme for an unnamed F1 team (believed to be be the Red Bull-owned Racing Bulls) in early 2025.

Lindblad made another TPC outing in June, driving at Imola with Red Bull Racing to prepare for his F1 practice debut.

Another key part of Red Bull’s plan was to provide further opportunies for Lindblad to secure FIA superlicence points, which led to him racing in FRegional Oceania at the start of 2025. He romped to the title with six victories.

• Read more: The trait more valuable than superlicence points that Lindblad now has

That put Lindblad above the 40-point tally he needed before even making his step up to Formula 2. But as Red Bull wanted the freedom to call him up to race in F1 mid-season, it lobbied the FIA to make an exemption for his superlicence to be granted before he reached the minimum age of 18 years old in August.

During a meeting of its World Motor Sport Council in June, that request was approved and special dispensation was made for the Anglo-Swede.

Lindblad has continued to impress in junior single-seaters, and currently sits seventh in the standings with two rounds left of his rookie F2 season. He won from pole in the Barcelona feature race, won the Jeddah sprint race and has two other podiums so far.

The post Red Bull Racing to run Arvid Lindblad in Mexico City GP practice 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.

The post ‘Qualifying and races, they’re two different sports’: F2 2025 data analysis appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Racing Bulls ran Ayumu Iwasa and Arvid Lindblad in a Formula 1 test last week, ahead of the latter making his free practice debut this weekend with Red Bull Racing.

The test took place at Imola on Monday (June 23) using the two-year-old AlphaTauri AT04 chassis, as part of the team’s testing of previous car (TPC) programme. Iwasa is Racing Bull’s test driver, and was in the cockpit during the afternoon.

Formula 2 racer and Red Bull junior Lindblad drove in the morning, and will get his first running in a contemporary F1 car this Friday (June 4) as he takes over Yuki Tsunoda’s car for free practice one of F1’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

His first mileage in older machinery came in a 2024 demo on a stretch of an old IndyCar circuit, and he revealed to Formula Scout that he also drove in a TPC test earlier this year but did not say which team it was with or where it took place.

“It was fun, driving an F1 car is always very special,” the 17-year-old said of his recent Imola outing. “It was nice to be back in the car, obviously very fast, a big step up from F2 in every way but it was really good.”

He will be working with Racing Bulls again once time allows since “there’s still some stuff to discuss and analyse for both me and Ayumu” from that test.

Arvid Lindblad claims to be “not ready” for a full-time drive in Formula 1 despite taking part in a behind-close-doors test with VCARB earlier in the week.

Looking ahead to his free practice outing, Lindblad called it “a very cool opportunity” while in conversation with Formula Scout.

“I kind of new very early on in the year that there were opportunities for that, when they requested thesuperlicense, I suspected there was something there.”

Since Lindblad is not yet at the minimum age usually required for an FIA superlicense, Red Bull put in a request to the FIA this February for an exemption to be made and it was approved during a meeting of its World Motor Sport Council this month.

“The opportunity to drive alongside Max [Verstappen] in the Red Bull as well will be extremely special and I can’t wait to have my first session on an official F1 race weekend at Silverstone as well, my home track, which makes it even more special,” the Anglo-Swede added.

The frontrunning F2 rookie also admitted that he does not feel prepared enough to step up to racing in F1 full-time in 2026, but would not be fazed by being called up for a cameo.

“I back myself that if the opportunity was to come to drive for one weekend, then I’d do a good job,” he said.

The post Iwasa and Lindblad do F1 test at Imola, Red Bull picks latter for FP1 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd & Red Bull

Alex Dunne has been disqualified from second place and Nikola Tsolov has been disqualified from victory in Formula 2 and Formula 3’s feature races at the Red Bull Ring.

Both drivers have lost their podium results due to the same technical infringement, relating to front plank thickness.

Wear during the race led to the plank on Dunne’s car being below the minimum thickness of four millimetres at two of the three areas where measurements are taken, and his disqualification promotes Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli and DAMS’ Jak Crawford to second and third.

Dunne’s loss of 18 points also means he goes from being six behind MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor, who he lost the championship lead to in the feature race, to now being 24 down on him. Crawford and Fornaroli are third and fourth in the standings, and are now two and four points behind Dunne respectively.

F2’s stewards also handed Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett a 10-second penalty and two penalty points post-race for contact with Prema’s Sebastian Montoya at turn three.

Campos Racing’s Arvid Linbdblad and Pepe Marti both got two penalty points in addition to the 10s penalties they received in-race for collisions with MP’s Oliver Goethe and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins respectively.

There are title fight implications from the post-race penalties handed out in the FIA F3 Championship too.

Tsolov had finished over six seconds clear of the pack for his third win of the season and to close to within one point of Trident’s Rafael Camara in the title fight.

The minimum thickness for the front plank in F3 is 4.5mm in F3, but 4mm readings are accepted when wear is taken into account. However one side was found to be below that on Tsolov’s car, and Campos “noted that a section of the plank was missing at the edge on the same side that was found to be noncompliant”.

They believed the impact that would have caused that would damage would have also contributed to it being worn down further on that side, but could not provide evidence of an event in which that damage was picked up.

Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne is the new winner of the feature race, with MP’s Tim Tramnitz and Campos’s Mari Boya completing the podium. Tramnitz is now Camara’s closest title rival, 24 points behind Camara and four ahead of Tsolov. Stenshorne is fourth in the standings, 22 points behind Tsolov.

AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides and VAR’s Theophile Nael enter the top 10, and therefore earn points, after ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen was disqualified from ninth place due to post-race readings revealing three of his tyres to be under the minimum pressure allowed.

AIX Racing’s Nicola Marinangeli, who finished 27th on-the-road, received 10s in penalties for exceeding track limits five times and Hitech’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr was fined €500 (£427) for not re-attaching his steering wheel after exiting his car in parc ferme post-race.

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