Martins takes Qatar F2 Feature Race win; A champion is crowned!
- Vyas Ponnuri
- 9 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Written by Vyas Ponnuri
Victor Martins took his first race win of 2025 with an emphatic drive in Qatar, while Leonardo Fornaroli was crowned the F2 champion in 2025 with one race to spare. Alex Dunne rounded out the podium in third.
AS IT HAPPENED - F2 Feature Race Qatar
Formula 2 embarked for its penultimate Feature Race event in Qatar, on a day when championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli stood with the ultimate chance of sealing a maiden F2 title. The Italian was promoted to pole position after Ollie Goethe's penalty dropped him to fourth on the Feature Race grid after qualifying.
Among the title contenders, Fornaroli started from pole position, while Rodin Motorsport's Alex Dunne started fifth. Saturday sprint winner Richard Verschoor started 10th on the road, while Jak Crawford and Luke Browning started 15th and 18th for the Qatar Feature Race.
The start of the formation lap was delayed by 10 minutes, beginning at 15:10 local time (12:10 GMT) instead, due to barrier repairs necessitated from an incident at the Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East race earlier in the day.
With a majority of the field starting on the soft compound of tyres on a track that saw 35-degree Celsius temperatures, it would be a challenge to see the drivers take the fragile tyre all the way until Lap 7, when the mandatory pit stop window opened.
As the five red lights went out, Fornaroli wouldn't have all the clear track ahead. The Italian lost the lead to ART's Victor Martins. Behind, Dunne made up a position on Ollie Goethe to sit fourth, after the German went wide into Turn 3 on the opening lap.
The likes of Verschoor, Joshua Dürksen and Rafael Villagómez too scrapped for positions at the lower end of the top 10, with the latter just holding off Verschoor for ninth on the road. Further ahead, PREMA Racing's Sebastián Montoya made up a position on debutant Nikola Tsolov to take sixth on Lap 3.
The first few laps saw Martins eke out a gap of upto 2.5 seconds, setting consecutive fastest laps as he continued to open up the gap to Fornaroli's Invicta Racing in second.
Further battling between Villagómez and Dürksen saw the sprint podium sitters scrap all the way through the first sector on Turn 4, after the AIX racer ran wide off the final corner. The Paraguayan would lose two positions to the Mexican driver as well as Verschoor, after running wide at Turn 1.
Another consequential move on Lap 5 saw Dunne veer around the outside of Staněk at Turn 1, taking third on the road, while Dino Beganovic moved past Dürksen into the top 10.
The tyre wear on the soft compounds were higher in the Feature Race, with drivers dropping into the pits right when the pit stop window opened on Lap 7. Fornaroli, Dunne, Montoya and Verschoor were among the contenders to jump into the pits immediately, while race leader Martins came in on Lap 8.
Despite a slightly slow pit stop, the French driver held on to the race lead, eventually sitting under two seconds ahead of Fornaroli on Lap 8. Martins' teammate Ritomo Miyata's day got tougher when he pulled into the pits on the same lap with an issue, becoming the race's first retirement.
Verschoor gradually made up ground after the pit stops, making a move on Villagómez after his pit stop, before moving past Staněk on Lap 13, having sat behind the Invicta racer for four laps.
The likes of Tsolov and Dunne were noted by the stewards for unsafe releases, while Trident's James Wharton had already received a penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Both Dunne and Tsolov received a five-second time penalties for an unsafe release during his pit stop.
A pivotal moment in the race came in the form of a safety car on Lap 15, when the safety car was called out to recover Goethe's stranded MP Motorsport car on the entry into Turn 10, throwing a spanner into the strategies of those running the hard tyres in the race.
Beganovic led a disjointed field back to green flag running on Lap 17, with a large gap behind Fornaroli in sixth to Lindblad in seventh. Wharton, on the other hand, received a ten-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, compounding his tough debut F2 weekend.
With 10 laps to go in the race, Beganovic extended the gap to the rest of the field, leading teammate Browning by almost four seconds, and holding a 24-second gap to Verschoor in 11th. He continued to extend the gap at the front, despite skating through the gravel at Turn 5.
Dunne attempted to negate the effect of his incoming penalty by making a move on Arvid Lindblad, albeit unsuccessfully at Turn 1. He would do so successfully a lap later, moving past into sixth with a deep dive down the inside of Turn 1.
Beganovic eventually pitted on Lap 28, ending a sterling stint on the hard tyres. The Ferrari junior driver rejoined the field in 12th, behind Staněk, albeit aiming to charge into the top ten on his soft tyres.
With every passing lap, Fornaroli's chances of sealing the title grew stronger, as his championship contenders faded away one by one, falling towards the lower end of the top 10. He sat just under a second off race leader Martins, who took back the race lead after Browning and John Bennett made their pit stops on Lap 30.
Nobody could rein in Victor Martins, though, who remained largely untroubled amidst a strong charge from Fornaroli behind. He would go on to grab the victory in the Qatar Feature Race, ensuring he doesn't end the year winless.
Fornaroli, though, grabbed the headlines behind; with a P2 finish, he extended his lead at the top to 41 points, leaving him invincible in the drivers' standings.
This meant he grabbed the drivers' championship with a round to spare, becoming the second Invicta Racing driver to win the title in two years, after Gabriel Bortoleto. He also became the second driver in two seasons to win Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles back to back.
An emotional Fornaroli celebrated his title victory, while Dunne held on to take the podium finish. Here are the results from the F2 Feature Race!
Classification: F2 Feature Race at Qatar
Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix)
Leonardo Fornaroli (Invicta Racing)
Alex Dunne (Rodin Motorsport)
Arvid Lindblad (Campos Racing)
Sebastián Montoya (PREMA Racing)
Richard Verschoor (MP Motorsport)
Nikola Tsolov (Campos Racing)
Roman Staněk (Invicta Racing)
Dino Beganovic (Hitech TGR)
Luke Browning (Hitech TGR)
Jak Crawford (DAMS)
Rafael Villagómez (Van Amersfoort Racing)
Gabriele Minì (PREMA Racing)
Joshua Dürksen (AIX Racing)
Martinius Stenshorne (Rodin Motorsport)
Kush Maini (DAMS)
John Bennett (Van Amersfoort Racing)
Laurens van Hoepen (Trident)
James Wharton (Trident)
Cian Shields (AIX Racing)
Ollie Goethe (MP Motorsport) - DNF
Ritomo Miyata (ART Grand Prix) - DNF
