Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Niko Lacorte left it late to top FIA Formula 3’s final pre-season test session at Barcelona, leading a DAMS one-two.

Enzo Deligny (Van Amersfoort Racing) was the pace-setter early on, leading team-mate Bruno del Pino before his other team-mate Hiyu Yamakoshi got within 0.167 seconds of his 1m30.430s.

Five teams did not record laptimes in the first half-hour, and Maciej Gladysz (ART Grand Prix) got ahead of del Pino.

More drivers headed out after, and Brando Badoer (Rodin Motorsport) posted a 1m32.108s to take top spot 38 minutes in. His team-mate Pedro Clerot went third fastest, 0.391s behind.

Ugo Ugochukwu (Campos Racing) demoted him to fourth by 0.03s before red flags waved three quarters of an hour in due to Jose Garfias (Prema) getting into trouble.

Three teams were still without laptimes, but that changed following the restart. Fernando Barrichello (AIX) lowered the pace to 1m31.688s, Ugochukwu improved in third and his team-mates entered the top 10 with their first efforts.

Theophile Nael (Campos) edged ahead of Ugochukwu by 0.075s on his next tour, but lost third shortly after as Noah Stromsted (Trident) got within 0.484s of Barrichello with his first flying lap.

Hour one of three ended with Brad Benavides (AIX), on his first flyer, going fastest by 0.115s before Freddie Slater (Trident) brought out red flags.

The restart occurred 72 minutes in, and shortly after Badoer and Yevan David (AIX) improved to 1m31.936s and 1m32.076s in third and fourth on a congesting track. Hitech GP’s drivers had now posted laptimes too.

There was no change to the top 10 until 85 minutes in, when Tuukka Taponen (MP Motorsport) went eighth quickest ahead of Deligny, who had not improved after topping the timesheet.

As the session’s second half began, Fionn McLaughlin (Hitech) stopped in sector three and triggered red flags.

There was 75 minutes left of the test at the next restart, and Slater posted his first laptime eight minutes later. It placed him eighth, 0.797s from the top, then team-mate Stromsted returned to third by getting within 0.144s of Benavides. There were only four cars on track, but it got busier in the final hour.

Badoer took to the front with a 1m31.473s, before Matteo De Palo (Trident) leaped from 17th to first by going 0.563s faster than anyone else. Christian Ho had risen from 22nd to sixth, but was a second off the pace.

Barcelona was at its busiest with half an hour remaining, and Tim Tramnitz (Hitech) snatched second from Badoer by 0.053s having previously been 21st. Ugochukwu improved to seventh.

Tramnitz reduced Benavides’s gap further to 0.375s with 13 minutes to go, and David set a new personal best in ninth.

The biggest change came six minutes from the end, as Lacorte and Xie jumped from 23rd and 24th to the top. Xie set a 1m30.275s, bettering Benavides by 0.635s, then Lacorte went 0.599s faster than him. The pair pitted straight after, leaving nine drivers taking the chequered flag.

Additional reporting by Ida Wood

Afternoon session results

The post FIA F3’s pre-season Barcelona test ends with Lacorte-led DAMS 1-2 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Gerrard Xie has joined DAMS’ FIA Formula 3 Championship line-up, meaning the 30-car field for the 2026 season is now complete.

The 19-year-old Chinese racer switches teams from Hitech GP, who he came 29th in the standings with last year as a rookie. A sprint race point at the Hungaroring was the highlight of Xie’s campaign.

More recently he has contested a half-season in Formula Regional Middle East with R-ace GP, in which he also scored only one point.

“Joining DAMS for 2026 is a great opportunity for me,” said Xie. “DAMS is a highly respected team with a strong history in single-seaters. I’m looking forward to working closely with everyone and giving my very best throughout the season.”

Before racing in F3, Xie already had experience in single-seaters’ third tier from two Euroformula outings in 2023 and ’24. In the latter he won a race, putting him 11th in the standings. He also showed race-winning form in FRegional Oceania, GB3 and Chinese Formula 4 on his way up the ladder.

Xie will be team-mate to fellow F3 sophomore Niko Lacorte and rookie Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi at DAMS.

The team’s owner Charles Pic said: “We are very happy to welcome Gerrard Xie to DAMS for 2026. We are confident that our environment and our approach will enable us to support him effectively in developing the potential he showed last season, in the same category.”

DAMS came last in the teams’ standings in 2025 with 30 points and fourth place as its best result. It was the French outfit’s first season in the championship previously known as GP3 since 2017.

The post Gerrard Xie joins DAMS to complete 2026 FIA Formula 3 grid 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: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Niko Lacorte has kept his DAMS seat in the FIA Formula 3 Championship for a second season.

The 18-year-old Italian joined the French team this year for his rookie F3 campaign and he came a points-free 33rd in the standings. His highest starting position was 15th, which was also his personal-best race result and was achieved twice.

Lacorte missed round six of the 2025 season after receiving a race ban. He had accumulated too many penalty points on his race license within a 12-month period, with a safety car speeding violating tipping him over the line.

“It’s an honour to continue with DAMS. The 2025 season has taught me a great deal, about discipline, consistency and managing unpredictable race situations,” said Lacorte.

“My goal for 2026 is clear: build on this experience, improve at every race and target strong results.”

DAMS’ team principal Charles Pic added: “Nicola’s continuation reflects our ambition to invest long-term in young driver development. His analytical abilities and constant dedication throughout the 2025 season, even in difficult circumstances, demonstrated that he possesses the qualities required to progress within a highly professional environment.”

Lacorte was signed to the Alpine Academy two years ago after coming ninth in E4 and Italian Formula 4, where he took a race win and one other podium. His time as a Formula 1 junior started strongly, as in a part-time Formula Regional Oceania campaign last year he took a win, a second place and came 10th in the standings despite missing 40% of the season.

But in the FRegional European Championship campaign that followed, Lacorte only scored points twice and came 21st in the standings.

This year Lacorte made two sportscar outings in IMSA, driving in the GT3 class for the Cetilar Racing team founded by his father.

The post Niko Lacorte keeps his DAMS seat in FIA F3 for a second season appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS’ Jak Crawford set the fastest time in free practice for Formula 2’s final round of 2025 at Yas Marina Circuit.

The Texan set his best time in the final seconds of the morning’s 45-minute session to pip Prema’s Gabriele Mini by 0.085 seconds. Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad was third fastest, a further 0.011s back from Mini.

After a couple of installation laps to scrub in Pirelli’s medium compound tyres, the field was soon back in the pits with the exception of Rodin Motorsport’s Martinius Stenshorne. However, his attempt to lay a time down early was thwarted by traffic as he encountered drivers exiting the pits as he started his flying lap.

Instead, it was Hitech GP’s Dino Beganovic who set the first representative laptime, although Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and then AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen immediately jumped to the top of the times.

Mini was back in front next time around, before being demoted by Montoya and MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe. However, as the session moved into its final 20 minutes, Mini again went fastest with a 1m39.866s on his eighth lap.

Turn two was proving tricky, with both Montoya and DAMS’ Kush Maini having wild moments but managing to catch their slides and press on with their laps.

The Prema pair were first to pit, as Mini’s benchmark remained unchallenged, with most of the rmaining runners following them in a lap later. The Invicta Racing duo of Roman Stanek and new champion Leonardo Fornaroli enjoyed an almost clear track but struggled to maintain pace for the full tour, with the latter only able to move up to sixth.

With under eight minutes remaining, Lindblad briefly moved top the top but his 1m39.790s laptimes was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn one, dropping back to eighth.

Mini improved again to 1m39.630s, which was briefly beaten by Crawford only for his time also to be struck from the timesheet for running outside of turn one’s track limits.

There were few legitimate improvements in the final minutes, but Lindblad later managed to keep his car within the white lines to go second with a 1m39.641s, then Crawford timed his final run to perfection to grab first place as the chequered flag came out.

Duerksen ended up fourth ahead of Goethe and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins, another with a late improvement. Half a second split the top eight, and a full second covered all but the four slowest drivers.

Free practice results

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS has completed its 2026 Formula 2 line-up by signing rookie Roman Bilinski to partner the returning Dino Beganovic.

Anglo-Polish driver Bilinski steps up from the FIA Formula 3 Championship, in which he came 11th this year as a rookie with Rodin Motorsport. He started his season on the podium, returned to it in Monaco’s feature race and won Monza’s sprint race.

Prior to that he did three Formula Regional European Championship seasons with Trident, two podiums being the highlights of that spell, and was the 2024 FRegional Oceania champion. In 2021 he won three races in GB3, having stepped up mid-season from British Formula 4 where he failed to net a victory.

“Joining such a historic team as DAMS is a real honour,” said Bilinski. “F2 is an incredible challenge, and I’m ready to give everything to represent the team at the highest level.

“I’ve learned a lot over the past few years and can’t wait to turn that experience into results on track. I’d like to thank DAMS for giving me this opportunity and for their trust.”

He partners Beganovic, who made his F2 debut with DAMS in late 2024, has raced for Hitech GP this season and was announced last month as returning to his former team.

“Roman brings a very balanced profile, quick, smart, and consistent,” DAMS’ owner Charles Pic commented.

“His success in Oceania confirmed both his potential and his professional approach. He joins DAMS with great energy and a strong desire to progress. We’re looking forward to supporting him as he takes this important step in his career.”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS has named its first Formula 3 signing for 2026 in the form of Formula Regional graduate Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi.

The Thai driver has spent the past two years racing in the FRegional European Championship, finishing 16th in the 2025 standings with Trident following six points finishes.

He previously failed to score in his rookie season with KIC Motorsport in 2024, following two years racing Formula 4 machinery across various series.

After debuting in cars in the United Arab Emirates championship in 2022 with Xcel Motorsport, he joined Jenzer Motorsport for that year’s ADAC and Italian championships, then joined PHM Racing for a 2023 campaign that took in the UAE, Italian, Euro 4 and Central European Zone series.

“We are very pleased to welcome ‘Jem’ to the DAMS Lucas Oil family,” said team owner Charles Pic.

“He’s shown great potential and a strong work ethic for his age. We look forward to supporting his progression as he takes on the challenges of FIA Formula 3 next season.”

Bhirombhakdi added: “I’m really excited to be joining DAMS Lucas Oil for the FIA F3 next year. I want to thank the team for giving me this opportunity and can’t wait to get started.”

DAMS is the last team to have named one of its drivers for next season, in a year where most of its rivals chose to confirm its full line-ups prior to or during the post-season tests.

Bhirombhakdi took part in all three post-season tests with DAMS alongside Nicola Lacorte and Gerard Xie. Lacorte already raced for DAMS during his rookie F3 season in 2025 while Xie competed for Hitech.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Dino Beganovic will reunite with DAMS in Formula 2 next year, after making his debut with the team at the end of 2024.

The 21-year-old Swede contested the final two rounds of last season with DAMS, and made the podium in just his third race.

He joined Hitech GP for his full-time step up into F2 this year, and sits eighth in the standings with two rounds to go but remains in contention to be championship runner-up. Last time out in Baku he took his maiden win and then his second feature race podium of 2025. Beganovic has also taken a pole and four fastest laps this season.

“I’m extremely happy to return to DAMS for another season in F2,” said Beganovic.

“I felt an instant connection with the team last year — both on a professional and human level — and we showed great potential together, including a podium in Abu Dhabi.

“I’m grateful for the trust they’ve placed in me, and for the continued support from the Ferrari Driver Academy. The goal now is to build on the progress we’ve made and fight consistently at the front.”

Beganovic has driven for Ferrari in two Formula 1 practice sessions this year, and became one of its junior drivers ahead of his car racing debut in 2020. Since then he has been Formula Regional Europe champion and an FIA Formula 3 race-winner.

“We were impressed by Dino’s maturity and professionalism during his first outings with us,” DAMS owner Charles Pic said.

“His work ethic, technical understanding and consistency perfectly match the values of our team. We’re thrilled to welcome him back for this next step in his career, and we’re confident we can achieve great things together.”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Jak Crawford resisted a Joshua Duerksen charge to win the Baku Formula 2 feature race to close up in the championship.

Points leader Leonardo Fornaroli lost a podium to a penalty after a rare mistake running into the rear of Alex Dunne, who failed to score along with Luke Browning.

Fornaroli took the lead from polesitter Crawford on the inside of the first corner of the race, and Gabriele Mini followed him through into second before Turn 2, although Crawford would repass Mini down the pit straight at the end of the lap.

Behind, Martinius Stenshorne passed both Alex Dunne and Pepe Marti to climb to fourth, but his impressive debut F2 weekend would come to an early end when he slid into the Turn 1 barrier after Marti took a look back up his inside at the start of lap five.

That brought out the safety car and with the field being led through the pitlane anyway, everybody stopped to change tyres – both the majority who started on the supersoft tyre and the three drivers further down the order who begun on softs.

The heavy traffic meant Fornaroli was held in his box and had to wait for Invicta Racing team-mate Roman Stanek to open a gap for him to rejoin, falling to fourth while Mini was able to jump to the lead in front of Crawford and Marti.

Mini went wide in the final corner on the lap after the restart, allowing Crawford by, only to then slipstream back in front down the pit straight. Crawford sealed the lead for good a lap later.

Behind, Dunne demoted Fornaroli to fifth, and four laps later they would make contact when Fornaroli simply ran into the back of the McLaren junior under braking, pushing him into the run-off area and down to ninth.

Duerksen, who had started 15th, took advantage to slip past Fornaroli, who would receive a 10-second penalty for the contact with Dunne.

AIX Racing driver went on to pass Marti and Mini, breezing past the latter down the pit straight with 10 laps to go once he had fallen out of Crawford’s DRS.

Crawford began having to defend from Duerksen with three laps still to run, but drove excellently on those laps to enter the pit straight each time with sufficient enough gap to remain ahead, even with Duerksen in his DRS. Just 0.216s separated them at the chequered flag as Crawford secured his third feature race win of the season.

Fornaroli followed Duerksen past Marti and Mini into third on the road, and Marti’s pace fell off so much – eliminating a sizeable advantage he had to Campos team-mate Arvid Lindblad – that Fornaroli would still finish ahead of him in fifth even after his penalty. It means he still has a lead of 19 points over Crawford in the championship.

Sprint race winner Dino Beganovic inherited the final podium place in third. The Hitech driver had a quiet start to the race from ninth on the grid but came on strong late on, also making quick work of Marti and Mini, who would finish fourth for his best feature race result of the season.

Dunne’s recovery would be thwarted up behind Lindblad, and with five laps to go he locked up and went deep up the escape road at Turn 15. Having rejoined towards the rear of the field he did the same a lap later, and this time to retire. He is now 58 points adrift of Fornaroli with two rounds remaining.

Browning too failed to make inroads into Fornaroli’s lead after a very slow start from fifth on the grid. Running close behind team-mate Beganovic, he was one of those who lost the most having to double stack in the pits, and he then went off at Turn 4 at the restart after suspected contact with Stanek. After pitting once more he would finish a lap down in 19th.

Another championship contender Richard Verschoor completed a muted weekend with ninth behind Rafael Villagomez and ahead of Sebastian Montoya.

Race results (29 laps)

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Jak Crawford claimed pole position in an incident-packed Formula 2 qualifying session in Azerbaijan.

Three red flags disrupted running on the streets of Baku, including one that brought an early end to the session with just one minute remaining. 

Crawford topped the times before the second red flag, with a time of 1m54.791s putting him just 0.019s clear of championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli.

Only half the field had completed their first flying laps when the first red flag was brought out less than eight minutes into the session. Amaury Cordeel had been on his first flying lap when he hit the wall at Turn 13, damaging his suspension.

Alex Dunne had jumped to the top of the order just before the red flag came out, but there was still over a second to be found on track when the session resumed again.

Fornaroli and Gabriele Mini both briefly took provisional pole position before Crawford jumped to the top of the times. Crawford had gotten a tow from Mini, giving him a few tenths of a second over the Prema Racing driver. 

Dunne, meanwhile, had gone fastest in the first sector before tapping the wall and damaging his steering. He was able to continue and made it back to the pits for repairs before his final run.

As the field returned to the pits before the final runs, Crawford was ahead of Fornaroli, Mini and Victor Martins. Nobody would get the chance to improve on those times.

Martins brought out the second red flag when he ran into the wall at Turn 3. His brakes then caught fire, extending the clean-up period.

There was time for just one flying lap when the session resumed again. Dunne once again went fastest of anyone in the first sector before a third red flag stopped the session for good.

Roman Stanek had run deep into the Turn 1 escape road, as had been done by other drivers early in the session. As he returned to the track, he ran onto the racing line as John Bennett passed on his flying lap. The two collided and the red flag was thrown. The session would not be resumed.

Dunne was fifth when the session ended, but Martins in fourth faces losing his lap time for bringing out the red flag and is likely to drop down the order.

Luke Browning was sixth quickest, having set the exact same lap time as Dunne in the first part of the session.

Pepe Marti was seventh fastest, ahead of Martinius Stenshorne and Stanek, who could also lose his best time. Sebastian Montoya was 10th with Dino Beganovic just outside the top 10 in 11th. Third in the championship, Richard Verschoor could only manage 13th quickest.

Qualifying results

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