DAMS driver Jak Crawford was the fastest driver on the first day of Formula 2’s three-day post-season test in Abu Dhabi, topping the overall timesheets with a 1:36.697 set at the very end of the afternoon session.

By Michael McClure

Crawford’s final effort on supersoft tyres, the last lap set by anyone all day, put him above morning pacesetter Victor Martins, who led the way with a 1:36.799, in the overall classification. 

It was a statement performance from the 19-year-old American, who finished fifth in the 2024 drivers’ standings and who is all but certain to be the highest-placed returning driver in 2025. Still, while it was an impressive time, Crawford reckoned that he could have gone even faster.

“It was not a great lap. My tyres were pretty toast by that point,” he told Feeder Series after the session.

A few minutes beforehand, Crawford did so by setting a 1:36.320, a lap several tenths faster than his best effort from F2 qualifying five days ago. That time, however, was quickly disallowed because he exceeded track limits at the first corner.

“I was just not thinking about it and it happened,” he said. “I didn’t know track limits happened in testing, but it is what it is. Still, we had good data, which is the most important thing. It’s not about the fastest time on the leaderboard, but the data we collected was great in the last run, so that’s the positive.”

The day also saw four drivers make their F2 bows in official sessions: Trident’s Sami Meguetounif, Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne, Campos’ Arvid Lindblad and Prema Racing’s Sebastián Montoya. All bar Dunne have had their places at their respective teams announced for 2025.

Day 1 morning as it happened

The morning session was a stop-start affair marked by five red flags, at least two of which occurred because of technical problems at the 5.281-kilometre track involving cars’ drag reduction systems, Feeder Series learned.

The first red flag came out at 9:12 local and lasted nearly 20 minutes until the session restarted at 9:32. At that point, few drivers ventured out on track before the next red flag at 09:50 because of a “technical reason”. The session restarted at 10:06 before being suspended once more at 10:12.

Upon the session’s resumption at 10:20, the length of the session was extended to 12:50, 50 minutes later than originally planned. Feeder Series understands that this was to compensate for the loss of track time because of the DRS–related issues.

During one of the intermediate periods, it was decided that cars would run without DRS. But F2 teams were reportedly unhappy with this proposal, so the red flag came out again while a more agreeable solution was sought.

Once the session went green again at 10:20, activity began in earnest. AIX Racing’s Joshua Dürksen set the first benchmark of a 1:38.184, which was quickly bettered by Campos Racing’s Pepe Martí on a 1:37.874 before the Paraguayan jumped up to a 1:37.155. Kush Maini, Oliver Goethe, Richard Verschoor and Martí all improved to within a tenth of Dürksen before ART Grand Prix’s Martins took the overall lead at 10:40 on a 1:37.038.

Less than 10 minutes later, the Frenchman – driving an all-carbon ART car without any Alpine Academy decals – went even faster on a 1:36.799, which remained the time to beat for the remainder of the session. Only MP Motorsport’s Verschoor got within a tenth of him on a 1:36.836, which put him second in the session. Theoretical lap times suggest that Verschoor could have gone even faster on a 1:36.724 had he not lost time in the opening sector.

Activity then slowed down until the red flag came out at 11:38 after Rodin’s Christian Mansell went off at Turn 13 and made slight contact with the barriers. The session resumed 10 minutes later, but a fifth red flag came out at 12:18 after Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli, driving new champion Gabriel Bortoleto’s car, suffered a high-speed spin exiting Turn 11 and ended up stuck in the run-off area at Turn 12.

Just prior to that, the other Invicta of Roman Staněk had snuck into fourth on a 1:37.176, just behind Dürksen. Martí dropped them both down the order with a late improvement to a 1:37.117 to go third, with the morning session top 10 rounded out by Maini, Goethe, Gabriele Minì, Ritomo Miyata and Max Esterson.

Mansell and Fornaroli did not return to the track after their off-track excursions, with Mansell suffering light damage to his nosecone and Fornaroli flat-spotting his tyres. The Italian, who told Feeder Series on Sunday that he had struggled on the supersoft tyres on his F2 debut last weekend, also missed the majority of the afternoon session.

Day 1 afternoon as it happened

The afternoon session transpired without interruption or incident as drivers were split between focusing on qualifying and race simulations.

From the start of the three-hour session until the final 15 minutes, the Hitech GP pair of Dino Beganovic and Luke Browning led the way, with Beganovic ahead of teammate Browning for most of the day. In the span of an hour, Beganovic dropped from a 1:38.050 to a 1:37.813, a 1:37.788, a 1:37.375 and finally a 1:37.250, with only Browning’s 1:37.409 briefly troubling the Swede’s reign at the top.

That was a welcome return to the top of the timesheets after the Hitechs focused on inlaps and outlaps rather than competitive times in the morning. But by the end, once track activity increased, Yas Marina feature race winner Dürksen supplanted Beganovic with a 1:36.821, the first time below the 1m37s barrier in the afternoon.

A previous improvement by rookie Meguetounif with 12 minutes to go split the Hitechs, while after Dürksen’s improvement came laps from Martins, Maini and finally Crawford, who usurped the Paraguayan at the flag with a 1:36.697.

Shortly after the session concluded, Dürksen’s AIX car was found to have run underweight during scrutineering and was summarily excluded. Maini thus completed a DAMS 1-2 with a 1:36.843, while Martins backed up his morning pace with a 1:36.870. Beganovic, Meguetounif, Browning, Martí, Fornaroli, Esterson and Miyata rounded out the top 10.

The two DAMS cars, the two Tridents and Mansell ran both race simulations and qualifying simulations in the afternoon, while all the other drivers in the top 12 – which also included Lindblad and Cian Shields – focused on qualifying simulations. Drivers from MP, Van Amersfoort Racing and Prema as well as Invicta’s Staněk and Rodin’s Dunne only did race simulations in the afternoon.

In Crawford’s case, car trouble in the morning session, which he finished 18th, cost him track time and forced him to do both types of runs in the afternoon. Still, the day was an opportunity to rebound after losing out during the grand prix weekend by qualifying 16th and retiring four laps into the feature race.

“We struggled a lot with tyre warmup in qualifying,” he said. “When I went out [today], we were testing some things, trying new procedures and stuff like that. It made a huge difference, to be honest, and it’s definitely a step in the right direction for us.”

Both Crawford and Browning made the move back to F2 machinery after participating in the F1 young driver test Tuesday afternoon. Crawford drove for Aston Martin, with whom he has been affiliated since the winter, while Williams junior Browning got behind the wheel of the FW46 after having done so previously on Friday in free practice one for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“The F1 stuff just made me tired, to be honest!” Crawford said. “But it’s a good experience to understand what makes a Formula 1 car fast over a short run and then be able to try to apply some of those things and see if any of them work for coming here.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency