Entering 2023 as the reigning Formula 3 champion, Victor Martins had high hopes for his rookie campaign in Formula 2. However, despite consistently qualifying and fighting toward the front of the grid, the Frenchman has struggled to stay within his limits. Speaking to Feeder Series, he explained the reasoning behind his strange start to life in F2 and how he has begun to learn lessons the hard way.

By Tyler Foster

As we enter the second half of the season, Martins sits a comfortable seventh in the F2 championship with two poles and five podiums. Like many of his competitors, there is an expectation that the slew of more traditional and historic circuits F2 visits throughout July – Spielberg, Silverstone, the Hungaroring and Spa – will hand him extra confidence for the month. The Frenchman has already proved this in Austria, where he took his second pole of the season and a podium in the sprint.

Unfortunately, the ART driver has now twice missed out on a big points haul from pole position, finishing a disappointing ninth in Austria, and the 22-year-old feels that he should have achieved more.

“Performance has not been a problem since the beginning of this season. However, when you are in a rookie season I feel like I don’t have the same pressure as last year. For example, with more experience [in my] second year of Formula 3, you need to deliver. You need to manage difficult situations.

“The mistakes I have done, they were sometimes big, sometimes really small, which were costing a lot in the end in terms of points and position finished. It’s about adapting to the situation and how much I push, how much risk I take regarding the target and goals at that moment. But in the end, I just wanted too much from the start of this season. It’s just a matter of understanding well and not changing the world, because I could have easily lost my confidence and lost a bit of overall pace.”

The biggest example of Martins’ performances was illustrated in Jeddah, where he outqualified his more experienced teammate, title contender Théo Pourchaire, by almost three-quarters of a second in just his second race weekend in Formula 2. He would then go on to achieve a brilliant podium in the sprint from tenth on the grid with enough pace to fight for the win. With the chance to take near maximum points from the round, Martins would fail to convert his feature pole after a spin that resulted in retirement from the lead.

There is an understanding from Martins that his aggressive approach has contributed to his own downfall at crucial times this season.

“Here I will say, maybe I didn’t have the right approach, which was just to give 100 per cent every time. Obviously, it works quite well in free practice, a lot in quali, and a bit less good in the races, with every time one mistake. I look at it also like that everything was going perfectly and then one small mistake would cost a lot. In the end, it is details that I need to understand, to learn with the team. It’s what we are doing.”

It is clear that, in spite of these mistakes, no confidence is missing from Martins in recent rounds. Three podiums and a pole make up for a cold streak that saw the rookie score just seven points across three previous weekends.

After achieving a double podium finish in Spain, Martins told Feeder Series at Silverstone that he attributes his recent results to lessons learned from mistakes made earlier in his rookie campaign. The ART driver took 21 points from Barcelona and felt that building some consistency was key for his learning.

“You have always the question within yourself until you actually do it, you deliver and score the points. So of course, making in Barcelona a double podium was a good thing for the confidence, a good thing for the team. I would say Barcelona was kind of the start to our own season.

“I will need to keep building confidence now in the next races.” 

While his ART teammate Pourchaire is locked in a title battle, Martins knows that there is a long way for him to go before he is able to compete for the same goal. With a gap of 67 points to current championship leader Frederik Vesti, he has an opportunity to steal positions from those who have the title on their mind.

“What happened in the first part of the season [has put] me in a position where I don’t really look at the championship. I’m too far away for the moment, and if I need to be in the fight at some point, it will be in a few more rounds.

“If I can take as an advantage that I’m not in the fight, we will see. Maybe I have been taking too many risks, so at some point I will need to manage, too, to finish races.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency