50. Jan Przyrowski

New entry • Raised his game to feature in two F4 title fights

Photo: Campos Racing

Photo: Campos Racing

Spanish Formula 4 sophomore Przyrowski made big strides in 2025, boosted by the continuity of remaining in Campos Racing’s line-up, having strong team-mates and a winter series to gain extra mileage in.

Last year he came 10th in Spanish F4, with two podiums and three fastest laps, and he was able to double his points and podium tally in a campaign by this March as he went on a roll in the inaugural Spanish F4 Winter Championship.

Przyrowski took both poles in round one, converting each into a win, and also won in rounds two and three to be runner-up in the standings. He was beaten to the title by team-mate Thomas Strauven, and their friendly on-track rivalry helped both to raise their game.

That continued into the main championship, where Przyrowski won three of the first four races. He was on the podium at all but one track, his run of seven successive poles incorporated three rounds, and he scored over 200 points in a field which was very competitive at the front. In every race he showed major improvements on the level he had performed at in 2024.

49. Salim Hanna

New entry • Top rookie in Europe’s most competitive F4 field

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Photo: ACI Sport

The seven-race Formula Trophy season in the United Arab Emirates a year ago was Hanna’s sole single-seater experience before embarking on a four-pronged Formula 4 attack in 2025.

F4 Middle East was the first championship he raced in, driving a Mumbai Falcons-branded car run by Prema, and he took a maiden podium en route to sixth in the standings. He remained with Prema for Italian F4 and its sister championship E4, and Hanna – under the guidance of countrymen Juan Pablo and Sebastian Montoya – continued to grow as a driver.

The Italian F4 season begin with Hanna starting on pole, and he converted it into a second place finish. There were five further podiums across the campaign, putting him fourth in the standings and topping the rookie classification.

In E4 he was seventh, adding one podium to his 2025 tally, and his busy schedule was completed by joining Virtuosi Racing in British F4 for two weekends. His first time in the paddock at Thruxton delivered his first victory, then in the Formula 1-supporting non-championship round at Silverstone he won both races.

48. Pepe Marti

Re-entry • Earned FE seat after matching F1-bound team-mate

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Marti came 10th in Formula Scout’s end-of-year ranking in 2023 after winning three races en route to fifth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship. That was his sophomore F3 season and his third year with Campos.

This year was his fifth as a Campos driver, his second racing in Formula 2, and also featured three victories.

Missing the last two rounds, having began pre-season preparations for his recent step up to Formula E, meant Marti came eighth in the standings. But at the point when he dropped off the grid, he was ahead of F1-bound team-mate Arvid Lindblad.

Marti was only 15th fastest in the F2 field for single-lap pace, but across the season he was fourth best on race pace and he finished higher than where he started in 13 out of 23 races. There were four occasions where he gained nine or more places, the first being the Bahrain sprint race where he climbed from 11th place to victory.

He also won the sprint races at the Red Bull Ring and Hungaroring, and his sole feature race podium was at Monza.

47. Liam McNeilly

New entry • Visa issues prevented a likely USF2000 title

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

The 2024 USF Juniors runner-up began 2025 by winning both races and coming 0.0566 seconds shy of a double pole in USF2000’s St. Petersburg season opener. Next time out at NOLA Motorsports Park it was three poles and three victories, then McNeilly headed home to England.

Following that, US state officials deemed his visa invalid. It prevented him from re-entering the country and continuing his season. They did not believe he was a racing driver, despite proof of that fact as multiple parties sought to get his visa approved again, and McNeilly sank to 14th in the standings after missing almost three quarters of the campaign.

There was an opportunity to contest the Canadian event in Toronto a few months later, yet with little to gain now from returning to USF2000, he instead stepped up to USF Pro 2000 for the weekend. He started and finished fifth on his debut, and qualified fourth for race two. That position was kept through the race, and his points-per-race average was the sixth best in the 2025 field.

Even later in the year he made his GB3 debut at Donington Park, with his cameo resulting in a podium.

46. Salvador de Alba

New entry • The fastest junior single-seater driver on ovals in 2025

Photo: Penske Entertainment / Travis Hinkle

Photo: Joe Skibinski

The switch from NASCAR Mexico, where he was champion, to open-wheel racing in 2022 has proven fruitful for Mexican de Alba who has maximised his oval experience in USF Pro 2000 and now Indy Nxt.

His rookie campaign in IndyCar’s primary feeder series last year featured two podiums, both on ovals, and he finished in each of the top four places across this year’s four oval races. There was also pole for the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway, a different kind of challenge compared to other ovals, and it was a result that he came close to achieving earlier in the year.

De Alba was the quickest on absolute pace around ovals, and fourth on race pace, with one victory at the Milwaukee Mile. On road and street courses, he had five top-five finishes and that put him fifth in the standings for a second season in a row.

The 26-year-old was more competitive at every track compared to 2024, showing he’s not stagnated yet in his fourth year of single-seater racing.

45. Roman Bilinski

New entry • Led Rodin to its best ever year in FIA F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The FIA F3 Championship has three-car teams, yet Bilinski scored over half of Rodin Motorsport’s points in 2025.

After three years in Formula Regional, which included a title in New Zealand but only two podiums in Europe and never coming higher than 15th in the championship, Bilinski stepped up to F3 with a point to prove.

Making the podium on his debut and also scoring in the feature race in Melbourne was a strong start, and two rounds later at Imola he netted two top-eight finishes. In the following round in Monaco he topped his qualifying group, which translated into starting and finishing second in the feature race.

At Silverstone he also claimed a double points finish, from row eight of the grid both times. In the feature race he was an impressive fourth, having climbed nine spots on lap one.

Bilinski’s season ended at Monza with a maiden victory in the sprint race, and further points the next day that contributed to 2025 being Rodin’s best ever in FIA F3. It was the most impressive year of his own career, in the first season after a serious injury had threatened to derail it.

44. Alessandro Giusti

Down 17 • Williams junior’s lengthy scoring run was unmatched in F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Giusti’s second place finish in the FIA F3 sprint race at the Red Bull Ring was not only the best result of his rookie season, but marked the end of a remarkable nine-race scoring run. It was a feat nobody else achieved this year.

That podium in Austria followed his third place in the Barcelona feature race, which he started from sixth and marked his best Friday and Sunday results by some margin. But on Saturdays, only three drivers scored more sprint race points in 2025 than Giusti.

When MP had top-10 potential, Giusti tended to do a good job of ensuring that translated into results and when he struggled for pace it mirrored what was happening to more experienced team-mate Tim Tramnitz. The team became less competitive over the course of the year, and in the season’s second half he fell from fifth to 10th in the standings.

43. Ariel Elkin

New entry • Made big leap up ladder and with his performances

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Elkin was buried in Italian F4’s midfield two years ago, then made a sideways step to USF Juniors in 2024 and was fourth in the standings with three wins. He moved two rungs higher on the road to Indy for 2025, racing in USF Pro 2000.

His debut weekend started well by qualifying seventh in St. Petersburg, but he retired in race one after finding a wall and then missed race two.

Following that he was routinely one of the most competitive drivers, winning twice on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course and then on his oval racing debut in assured style in the Freedom 90 around Lucas Oil Raceway.

Although there were only two podiums in the second half of Elkin’s maiden campaign in the third tier of single-seaters, he finished six of those nine races in the top five and that consistency was enough to make him championship runner-up while rivals had more retirements and finishes outside of the top 10.

Later in the year he did two Eurocup-3 rounds, and then made a winning cameo in SMP F4’s winter series in Russia.

42. Jack Jeffers

New entry • Third title from four years on the US single-seater scene

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

There were four drivers with the potential to win the USF2000 title this year, and after McNeilly’s enforced early exit it was sophomore Thomas Schrage who then became the leading driver after taking seven podiums in a row.

After that, rookie Jeffers went on an even more impressive run of eight successive podiums in the last three rounds. That included five victories and three poles, and sent him to what ended up being a comfortably claimed title. He was crowned with a race to spare at Portland, and in the first race there got to have a straight fight with Schrage.

Jeffers finished second in the first three races of the season in St. Petersburg and at NOLA, and took his first win and a third place on IMS’s road course. His sole non-finish was in race one at Road America, which marked the first time he started from pole. The incident that ended his race involved his car going airborne and then into a wall.

Race two the next day was also a low point full of learning, as he started from pole again but lost out in battles, had a wide moment and finished seventh. His only other bad result was on his oval racing debut, as he came ninth in the Freedom 75.

41. Tuukka Taponen

Down 27 • Ferrari junior was ART GP’s top scorer in FIA F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s highest-scoring driver in FIA F3 this year navigated his rookie season well while his team wasn’t always on the pace, and made the top 10 in the standings as a result.

He finished fourth in two of the first three feature races of 2025, and netted a maiden podium in a sprint race during that time, then in Monaco he took his best result of the season by finishing second in the sprint race.

Only one point followed in the next four rounds, meaning Taponen fell from fifth to ninth in the points table, but he bounced back at the Hungaroring with his first feature race podium.

Having qualified 24th then finished 14th and 20th in the season-opening races in Melbourne, Taponen felt ART made a “good step up” for round two at Bahrain where he had his highest-scoring weekend. There were eight races in total which he scored in, fewer than sophomore team-mate Laurens van Hoepen but leading to a greater haul of points.

His results were also far better than his pace metrics for the season, indicating he maximised what he had, having been the 16th best for single-lap pace and 12th best for race pace across the year but with a 46-point feature race haul that was the seventh best in the field.

Written by Ida Wood

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2025: 50-41 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: Red Bull

Nikola Tsolov will make an earlier than scheduled step up to Formula 2 with Campos Racing, joining the team for the last two rounds of the 2025 season.

The Bulgarian was announced by the team two months ago as joining its line-up for the 2026 campaign, after racing for them in the FIA Formula 3 Championship this year.

He will now make his F2 debut at Losail in a few weeks’ time on November 28-30, taking over the car previously driven by Formula E-bound Pepe Marti, and also race in the season finale at Yas Marina Circuit the week after.

“It’s a pleasant surprise to be making my F2 debut already this year for the final two rounds!” said Tsolov.

“I’m very grateful to Campos Racing and Red Bull for their trust and for giving me this opportunity. I’ve been working extremely hard and feel ready to take this step. I’m looking forward to learning as much as possible and gaining valuable experience ahead of 2026.”

Tsolov spent three years in F3, and his first two were with ART Grand Prix. He came 22nd and 11th in the standings in those two campaigns, winning three races in the second one but missing a round, and with Campos he was championship runner-up this season. The 18-year-old won twice, had four other podium finishes and three poles.

“First of all, I would like to thank Pepe for all these years together since he made his debut with us in F4 Spain and later in FIA F3 and F2,” Campos’s team principal Adrian Campos Jr said.

“We’ve shared incredible moments, a great number of victories and podiums side by side, and on behalf of everyone at Campos Racing, I wish him all the best for the future. For Nikola, this represents a fantastic opportunity to begin his adaptation to the category—and to do so in real race conditions. We are already working hard with him so that he arrives as well prepared as possible for Losail, which will be his first outing in an F2 car.”

Tsolov became a Red Bull junior this year, and replaces Marti who is also a protege of the Formula 1 team-owning Austrian energy drinks firm.

Three weeks ago, the Cupra-partnered Kiro Race Co. team (formerly known as ERT) announced it had signed Marti as one of its drivers for the 2025-26 FE season. That move immediately made Marti unavailable for the F2 finale, since it is on the same date as FE’s season-opening Sao Paulo E-Prix. The preparations for his FE debut then also ruled him out of racing at Losail.

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Photo: Red Bull

Formula 2 race-winner will graduate to single-seaters’ top level later this year, having landed a Formula E seat for the 2025-26 season.

The 20-year-old Spaniard has been signed by the Cupra-partnered Kiro Race Co. team (formerly known as ERT) to partner Dan Ticktum.

Marti is a protege of Red Bull’s Formula 1 teams and Aston Martin F1 driver Fernando Alonso through his A14 Management company, and is a total newcomer to FE. He will make his debut at the Sao Paulo E-Prix in December.

“I’m very excited to join Cupra Kiro for the 2025-26 FE season. Obviously, it will be my first time racing in the category, and I’ll be a rookie, but nonetheless, I’m looking forward to it,” said Marti.

“The team is coming into season 12 off the back of a win in Jakarta, and I feel very motivated to get this new chapter started. With Dan as my team-mate, I’ll have a lot to learn and catch up on at the beginning of the season, but my goal is to get up to speed, improve quickly and score points and hopefully get a couple of good results.”

Marti is currently contesting his sophomore season in Formula 2, and is in his fifth year of single-seaters.

He came third as a rookie in Spanish Formula 4 with Campos Racing in 2021, and was Formula Regional Asian Championship runner-up at the start of 2022. For the step up to FIA Formula 3 later in the year he reunited with Campos, and has raced with the team every since since.

In his maiden FIA F3 campaign, Marti only scored two points and came 26th in the standings, but improved to sixth as a sophomore with three wins. During 2023 he also came fifth in the Macau Grand Prix, and won two races in FRegional Middle East as a part-timer.

Marti’s time in F2 started on a high with two podiums on his debut weekend, but only scored in seven of the next 26 races. That included two sprint race podiums, the latter of which was a win in the season finale, and left him 14th in the standings.

This year it took two races for Marti to taste victory again, but he has had several points-free weekends again. With two rounds to go he remains in title contention, sitting sixth in the points table after taking two more sprint race wins.

“Despite being just 20 years old, Pepe has shown exceptional levels of maturity, composure, and intelligence, which, when combined with his natural speed, makes him stand out as a top talent in modern motorsport,” said Cupra Kiro’s chief operating officer Russell O’Hagan.

“His decision to step away from F2 and commit fully to our FE project is a real statement of intent, and not only validates our vision as a team, but shows belief in the future of the championship. His track record and drive align perfectly with our own goals, and together, we’re building something with long-term potential.”

The post Pepe Marti lands 2026 Formula E seat with Cupra Kiro appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Pepe Marti held off attacks from Arvid Lindblad and then Alex Dunne for his fourth Formula 2 sprint race win at the Hungaroring.

Rodin Motorsport’s Dunne split the Campos Racing drivers at the front of the reversed grid, but a slow start meant he dropped behind Lindblad.

Climbing three spots to fifth on lap one was DAMS’ Jak Crawford, while Invicta Racing’s Roman Stanek dropped out of the top 10 due a collision. Prema’s Gabriele Mini had tried and failed passing him into the chicane, and his slow exit allowed AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen alongside. They managed to remain wheel-to-wheel through to turn eight and heading into nine, where Mini clipped the rear of Stanek and sent him spinning down to last place.

Just 0.4 seconds split the top two at first, and the gap never grew beyond 0.7s in the first 11 laps. Lindblad was particularly close on lap seven, having a look into turn two, and on lap eight where a dive into turn one put him ahead until turn three where Marti got back past.

Marti had anticipated Lindblad’s attack, opened the line and then was able to cut back at the exit. Lindblad then covered the inside for turn two, but Marti cannily pulled off with the switchback to be ahead before turn three.

They continued pushing, and both set personal best laptimes on lap 10. Marti was not happy with the situation, and Campos told Lindblad to save his tyres.

He remained within DRS range of Marti though until lap 19 of 28 when Dunne reclaimed second with a late turn one dive.

Lindblad was immediately gapped this time, and a failed overtake attempt on him by ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins allowed Crawford to nab fourth.

The top two set personal bests on lap 21, as eight cars queued behind Lindblad. The race then took a twist, as Prema’s Sebastian Montoya stopped on the pit straight and the safety car was called. It aided Lindblad, who could cool his tyres, and Mini as he was at the back after switching to the soft compound and serving a 10s penalty for his Stanek clash a few laps earlier.

The pit-lane was closed for the marshals to recover Montoya’s car through the accesses to the main straight. Therefore, no one could pit for softs and attempt a late charge.

Three laps remained when racing resumed, and Mini came back from 21st to 14th, one spot behind Stanek.

Marti set another personal best on the restart lap, but still had late pressure after sliding at turn five on the last lap. Dunne almost got fully alongside around the outside of turn 13 , but ran wide, and was cautious rather then attacking into the final turn to finish 0.225s behind Marti.

Crawford overtook Lindblad at turn one, and pulled away, while Browning slipstreamed past Martins at the restart then held on to fifth after a wide moment at turn five and then cutting the chicane.

Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli pipped Richard Verschoor to seventh to extend his points lead over him, with MP Motorsport team-mate Oliver Goethe’s own failed passing attempt on Fornaroli on lap two granting him eighth.

Race results (28 laps)

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Photo: Red Bull

Pepe Marti claimed his second win of the Formula 2 season at the Red Bull Ring in a crash-filled sprint race.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett made a poor getaway from reversed-grid pole and was quickly passed by fellow front row starter and AIX Racing driver Joshua Duerksen.

The pair were still in the top two places when the race was stopped on lap four. Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad had been looking to get past Hitech GP’s Luke Browning, and at turn turn three Trident’s Sami Meguetounif got involved too by lunging down Lindblad’s inside.

As Lindblad turned in, Meguetounif made contact and his car rolled over and then onto Browning’s while upside down. Red flags waved and the trio walked away from the incident unscathed, with the clear-up taking 40 minutes.

When the race restarted there was another incident at turn three, with Hitech’s Dino Beganovic being spun around by MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe, and this triggered a safety car period.

Once racing resumed, Duerksen built a gap but then had that reduced by Marti. The Campos driver had started fifth, and on lap 18 he made his move. He picked the inside line for turn three and took the lead, but Duerksen fought back and reclaimed first place with a spectacular move down the inside of the next corner.

Marti repeated his overtake a lap later, and this time Duerksen could not come back at him. After initially managing a gap of around a second, Marti began to pull away as Duerksen’s focus switched to Roman Stanek behind.

The Invicta Racing driver kept the pressure up to the chequered flag, finishing 0.264 seconds.

Rodin Motorsport’s Amaury Cordeel was on course for a season-best finish of fourth place until the final lap when he spun exiting turn three. MP’s Richard Verschoor avoided him, but then Gabriele Mini drove into his parked car.

Behind Mini, Invicta’s Leonardo Fornaroli was trying to make a move on the inside of Bennett but carried too much speed and almost drove into the rear of the Prema driver on entry. Once he got his car back under control to turn in, Fornaroli then drove into Mini on the exit, with Bennett going into the back of him.

Prema’s Sebastian Montoya jumped from ninth to fifth as a result, and it also put title contenders Alex Dunne (Rodin) and Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) into the points. Dunne now leads Verschoor by one point in the championship.

Race results (28 laps)

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Photo: Red Bull

Campos Racing’s Formula 2 drivers have been handed double grid penalties for impeding offences in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring.

Arvid Lindblad was found to have obstructed DAMS driver Jak Crawford and MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe between turns six and seven, while his team-mate Pepe Marti impeded AIX Racing’s Cian Shields at the same location.

Both drivers will not only get a three-place grid penalty each for the sprint race, but the same penalty for the feature race.

That means Marti will start fifth on the sprint race’s reversed grid and 12th the next day having qualified ninth, while Lindblad is set to line up 15th both times as he was only 12th fastest. AIX’s Joshua Duerksen is promoted onto the sprint race front row.

Crawford, Goethe and Shields were also involved in other incidents, with Shields being reprimanded for crossing the pit entry’s white line and DAMS getting fined €500 (£427) for releasing Crawford into the path of Goethe in the pitlane. All three ended up outside of the top 14.

In practice, DAMS’ Kush Maini had been warned for impeding Prema’s Sebastian Montoya at turn nine, Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne was fined €100 for exceeding the pitlane speed limit and Hitech GP’s Luke Browning had all of his laptimes deleted due to being unable to provide a sufficiently sized fuel sample post-session.

ART Grand Prix’s Tuukka Taponen also got a €100 pitlane speeding fine, having exceeded the limit by a tiny 0.062mph in FIA Formula 3 practice.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Formula 2 drivers are glad that Barcelona will remain on next year’s schedule, which was confirmed in the 2026 calendar reveal.

There had been uncertainty regarding Barcelona’s future with Formula 1 and its support series after it was announced last December that F2 would support the Spanish Grand Prix in 2026 when it relocated to a new street circuit in Madrid.

Barcelona will host F1 and its supports on June 12-14 next year, with its race contract expiring after that.

“I envy MotoGP for having four grands prix in Spain up until now. They had Aragon, Valencia, Jerez and Barcelona, so it was amazing for them and for the Spanish fans. I’ve always said that I would love for the same to be done with F1,” said Spanish driver Pepe Marti, who demoed an FIA Formula 3 car in Madrid this month.

“Madrid is a fantastic location, it’s a great city, the capital of Spain. So it makes complete sense to me that they have a race as well, but from my personal aspirations, I would love it if it was both, if I had to choose just one.”

Campos Racing team-mate Arvid Lindblad said it would have been “a bit of a shame” to lose Barcelona, labelling it “a big hub for motorsport in Europe”.

As a track that is usually tested and raced on, it provides important calibration opportunities for teams and for drivers to measure their development.

“I enjoy it quite a lot, especially since they put the last two corners to high speed again. It’s been really nice coming here, and you have pre-season testing here and you can come here all year round,” mused Prema’s Sebastian Montoya.

DAMS’ Kush Maini said it would “definitely [be] sad to see it leave, but new challenge [in Madrid], so looking forward to that”.

Formula Scout asked Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne about Madrid’s inclusion when it looked to be at the expense of the well-known Barcelona.

“For the rookies who are in F2 next year, it’s probably better,” he explained. “It’s a street circuit where it’s a little bit more difficult, but nobody on the grid will know the track apart from the laps they’ve done on the simulator.  So as a rookie, when everybody has to learn it rather than just you, it’s I would say probably not an advantage, but it makes it a little bit easier.

“The only thing is that it adds [potential] for another track where you can’t overtake. I feel like we have a few tracks on the calendar now where overtaking isn’t great, so from that aspect it’s a little bit annoying. Naturally as young drivers you want to learn street tracks because that’s a good skill to have as a driver, but at the same time in a junior series you want to be at tracks where you can race, and you can develop your racecraft and race hard with the other drivers on track.”

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Photo: Red Bull

Pepe Marti made the podium in the Formula 2 sprint race in Jeddah but feels he was “let down by my own performance” after a mistake cost him a potential victory.

The Spaniard was classified in second place behind his Campos Racing team-mate Arvid Lindblad after MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor received a five-second time penalty for not leaving Marti enough space at the exit of turn two when overtaking him on lap five of 20. 

Marti was visibly disappointed with his performance in the post-race press conference, as a mistake at turn 10 on lap 8 cost him track position to Lindblad and some crucial ground in the battle at the front of the field.

“To be honest, it’s a good result P2, but I’m not happy at all,” he told media including Formula Scout. “I would have inherited the lead had I not gone off. It’s true that Arvid at that point was maybe a bit quicker than me, but I think later on we stabilised and we had a pretty similar pace. 

“So to be honest, [I’m] quite let down by my own performance. Obviously, it’s quite good for the championship, but I’m not really proud of the result if that makes a lot of sense.”

Marti was surprised to learn that Verschoor’s penalty was because of the Dutchman’s overtake on him.

“I had no idea that that was the reason for the penalty,” he said. “To be honest, I thought it was on the limit. I thought it was a bit too harsh, but then again, we’re racing. I also gave him just the amount of right space in the exit of turn one. So I think you can look at it in many ways. 

“To be honest, if that was the reason for the penalty, then good for me, and I think good for the three of us. But I think I’ll have to look back and analyse and then I’ll think about what I think about it.”

The Red Bull junior driver has scored points in the first four races of the season, and is second in the championship tied in points with Alex Dunne, but wants more than just consistency.

“In this world you have to win races, you have to do a good job, you have to be competitive, especially on Sundays. That’s where the points are given out. And in Bahrain, we did a really good job. We came from 11th. We kind of maximised what we had with fourth.

“I certainly cannot afford mistakes like the one today going forward. Obviously today I got out of it quite happily, getting a second place after going off in T10. And to be honest, when I went off, I was facing the wall and I was still bottoming and coming out sideways for the whole lap, so to be fair, staying ahead of the pack was already a miracle.”

The post Marti “let down” by conceding Jeddah F2 win shot to Lindblad appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Pepe Marti says the ongoing support from both Formula 1 driver Isack Hadjar and Red Bull “means a lot” to him following a “complete disaster” of a rookie Formula 2 season.

Marti stormed to victory in the Bahrain sprint race, with a last lap overtake on Joshua Duerksen securing him victory, and had his former Campos Racing team-mate turned Racing Bulls F1 driver Hadjar there to congratulate him post race.

“He’s a great guy and I’m really happy to see that he’s doing so well in Formula 1,” Marti told media including Formula Scout afterwards.

“He was a great team-mate to me. Even when he was fighting for wins and I was fighting for some points, he was always really like, ‘trust in your talent’ because in the end he knows me since karting, we fought in Formula Regional and in a lot of different championships, and we were always on par with one another.”

Having signed for the Red Bull Junior Team two years ago, Marti is looking to follow in his friend’s footsteps and step up to F1.

“Last season was a complete disaster,” lamented Marti. “It means a lot them [Red Bull] putting their trust in me.”

“It pushes me to say they trust me because I have the talent to do what I’m doing and to do a race like this one. I’m hoping I can make this race a standard for my performance and that I can also build this kind of performance into qualifying.

“[That] is what’s keeping me behind from fighting for the top three and four in every single race. I don’t think my issue is a lack of race pace I think its a matter of on the last lap [of qualifying] putting it all together. If I can work on that I think I can be a championship contender.

“As a team we have done a really good job. Red Bull and Campos have worked together a bit to try to extract the most out of this new machinery and for them to be supporting me again this year means a lot, and they’ve helped me a lot in my growth as a driver.”

Expanding further on last year’s struggles, Marti feels that he quickly adapted to F2 to be competitive in Bahrain and Jeddah last year, but that he “went against what the car wanted”.

“It was all a matter more of how I directed what I was learning,” he said. “I think I just took it all in the wrong way and I went against what the car wanted and from Qatar onwards I was, back on pace close to Isack and obviously in Abu Dhabi we ended up really, really well.

“So it’s just how I put my feelings and my experience back to use and it’s very pleasing to get started with good results. In Australia we also did quite a decent comeback, so I’m hoping to build on this.”

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