Fornaroli aces the Spa challenge to claim second F2 sprint win in a row
- Vyas Ponnuri
- Jul 26
- 5 min read
Written by Vyas Ponnuri
Invicta Racing's Leonardo Fornaroli took his second consecutive F2 sprint win in 2025, converting third at the start to the race lead on Lap 1, before using his tyres to the full extent until the end of the race to take race victory.
The Italian driver nailed his start to perfection off the five red lights, moving past the front row of Ollie Goethe and Amaury Cordeel in the short run down to Turn 1. This was the deciding move, with Fornaroli effective in preserving his tyres until the end of the race.
He would be closely followed by ART Grand Prix's Victor Martins, who moved up from sixth on the road to finish second, while Gabriele Minì climbed up from eighth to finish third in a stop-start race featuring three safety cars.
Goethe, who started at the front of the field, came home to finish fourth on his ageing tyres, ahead of Campos racer Pepe Martí and Fornaroli's teammate Roman Staněk in sixth.
Alex Dunne came home to finish seventh, having started tenth on the road, while Ritomo Miyata took home the final point in the sprint in eighth, ahead of Campos racer Arvid Lindblad and Van Amersfoort Racing's John Bennett.
AS IT UNFOLDED
Alex Dunne came into the sprint race on the back of a scorching pole lap in Friday's qualifying session. Having finished tenth in qualifying, championship leader Richard Verschoor's teammate Ollie Goethe started the 18-lap sprint from the front of the field.
Alongside him was Dunne's teammate Amaury Cordeel, the Belgian driver in sight of a rare home victory. Invicta Racing's Leonardo Fornaroli started third for the Saturday sprint. Several championship contenders started outside the top ten, with Verschoor, second-placed Jak Crawford, and Hitech TGR's Luke Browning among the big names at the back.
Goethe's dreams of a sprint victory took a hit once the five red lights went out, as Fornaroli made a stellar start to take the race lead. It would only take a few moments before the race experienced an intervention, in the form of the Virtual Safety Car.
Off the exit of Turn 1, Crawford and Browning came together, taking each other into the gravel trap on the exit of the corner. The DAMS man found his way back to the pits, albeit well down the order.
The incident also caught out Verschoor, who suffered damage to his sidepod. Running a crippled MP Motorsport car down to Eau Rouge, the Dutchman experienced a leary spin in one of motorsport's scariest corners. He would later report to the team of an oil leak on his MP Motorsport machine, resulting in the spin.
The series of incidents meant the VSC was upgraded to a full safety car, with drivers taken through the pit lane, as marshalls scurried to clear the stricken Williams-liveried Hitech TGR car of Browning. Verschoor too retired from the race, with too much damage to his sidepod rendering him unable to continue.
The safety car came into the pit lane at the end of Lap 3, leaving Fornaroli in the lead, to dictate the pace, with two hungry drivers in Cordeel and Goethe behind him.
The top five remained in their respective positions, with the only change coming from Dunne moving past Ritomo Miyata to make his way up into the points in eighth.
It wouldn't be long before Fornaroli's teammate Roman Staněk made his way up to ninth, passing the Japanese driver along the way.
Fornaroli's attempts to pull away wouldn't be to much avail initially, with Cordeel keeping within DRS range, before attempting to make an overtake heading into Les Combes on Lap 6.
Arvid Lindblad and Gabriele Minì continued to battle for sixth on the road, heading onto Lap 7. While the PREMA Racing driver couldn't find a way past, he would fend off an ambitious move from Dunne, heading into Bruxelles corner, an unorthodox overtaking spot on the track.
It would be a day to forget for DAMS, with Kush Maini coming in to the pits to retire from the race, following a technical issue. The Indian racer had dropped back from 16th on the safety car restart, running well off the pace for several laps. He would later return to the track, albeit three laps down on the rest.
Victor Martins would make his way up into third, moving past a struggling Goethe, who had experienced a scary high-speed moment of oversteer in Raidillon corner a lap earlier, before being passed by the ART Grand Prix driver on Lap 9.
The Williams junior rapidly closed in on Cordeel in second, emerging within half a second as the pair turned into Turn 1 on Lap 12. Martins, who had the benefit of the DRS, made his way around the outside of the Rodin Motorsport racer into Les Combes.
However, the pair made contact, shearing off the Belgian's left-front tyre, sending him into the gravel trap and out of the race. A frustrated Cordeel saw the chances of a maiden pole slip right through his fingers, with the safety car deployed due to the stranded Rodin Motorsport car on the outside of the corner.
With nothing to lose, a majority of the pack opted to use the safety car period to make a pit stop. This left the likes of Fornaroli, Martins and Goethe in the top three on older tyres, while Minì and Cian Shields sat in the top five, having stayed out.
A quick safety car meant the field went to green flag running onto Lap 14, with the spotlight set to be on the drivers below sixth-placed Pepe Martí, who made light work of Shields to move up to fifth, while Minì made his way past Goethe to sit third.
Dunne made the most of the intervention, moving past Shields earlier, before a dive into Turn 1 on Staněk saw the Irishman rise to sixth on the road. As he attempted to move past Martí a lap later in the same zone, he would lose position to Staněk's Invicta Racing car into the Les Combes chicane.
Fornaroli opened up a gap of almost two seconds heading onto Lap 17, as he set fastest laps to scamper away from the field, with the threat of those on fresher soft tyres looming large, as the chasing pack were marooned behind Goethe in fourth.
Dino Beganovic and Rafael Villagómez received five-second penalties for track limit violations. Meanwhile, Trident's Sami Meguetounif came to a halt on the Kemmel straight, down to Les Combes chicane.
Stopped on the track, the stewards called out the Safety Car for the third time in 18 laps, signalling an effective end to on-track action, and guaranteeing Fornaroli a second consecutive sprint race victory in F2.
The win came at an opportune time for Fornaroli, catapulting him to third in the standings, just eight points behind championship leader Verschoor. Dunne, meanwhile, gained a useful two points to make it four drivers sitting within ten points of the championship lead, shaping up a tight battle for the Feature Race on Sunday.
Final Classification - F2 sprint (Belgium)
Leonardo Fornaroli (Invicta Racing)
Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix)
Gabriele Minì (PREMA Racing)
Ollie Goethe (MP Motorsport)
Pepe Martí (Campos Racing)
Roman Staněk (Invicta Racing)
Alex Dunne (Rodin Motorsport)
Ritomo Miyata (ART Grand Prix)
Arvid Lindblad (Campos Racing)
John Bennett (Van Amersfoort Racing)
Jak Crawford (DAMS)
Joshua Dürksen (AIX Racing)
Cian Shields (AIX Racing)
Max Esterson (Trident)
Sebastián Montoya (PREMA Racing)
Dino Beganovic (Hitech TGR)
Rafael Villagómez (Van Amersfoort Racing)
Sami Meguetounif (Trident) - DNF
Kush Maini (DAMS) - +3 Laps
Amaury Cordeel (Rodin Motorsport) - DNF
Richard Verschoor (MP Motorsport) - DNF
Luke Browning (Hitech TGR) - DNF
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