Leonardo Fornaroli was the class of the Formula 2 field in Sakhir on Friday, taking pole by 0.155 seconds from Williams juniors Victor Martins and Luke Browning. 

By Martin Lloyd 

Throughout the session, Fornaroli was one of the quickest drivers on the track. The reigning Formula 3 champion jumped to the top of the timesheets on his first run with a 1:44.642 on his initial run, putting him 0.468 seconds clear of Martins before Pepe Martí closed the gap to Fornaroli to 0.223s.

Even when Martins bettered Fornaroli’s time by half a second on his second run, Fornaroli responded by surging to pole position with a stunning lap time of a 1:44.008. 

The Invicta Racing rookie spoke at the post-session press conference about how he used the recent in-season test in Bahrain to prepare for the race weekend. Fornaroli completed 234 laps over the three days and set a best lap time of a 1:42.714, placing him fourth overall. 

“In testing, I struggled a bit starting the race simulations,” Fornaroli said. “On the last day we fixed a lot of things, so I’m confident, but I know that everything can happen because it’s a track where you can play a lot with degradation and strategy.”

The Italian’s Invicta team have picked up where they left off after winning the championship with Gabriel Bortoleto, who also won the F3 championship with Trident.

Fornaroli told Feeder Series about the additional challenges brought about by racing in F2. His first weekend came with Rodin Motorsport at last season’s final round in Abu Dhabi, where he admitted to feeling “lost” within the power and size of the Dallara F2 2024.

“I had to change the most in the races,” Fornaroli added. “Bigger tyres, more power, heavier car – all these things make the tyre management trickier. That was the big adjustment I had to do.”

Fornaroli has continued his strong start to the F2 season after he finished second in the Melbourne sprint. ART’s Martins has also started well and qualified in second place for a second consecutive feature race. Since the Melbourne weekend, he was announced as a new member of the Williams Racing Driver Academy, having left Alpine’s young driver programme at the end of 2024. 

Browning, a further tenth back in third place, said he was surprised by his own performance after a tough in-season test. He also took part in his second F1 free practice with Williams in Bahrain after a maiden outing in Abu Dhabi last season. Dino Beganovic made his F1 practice debut in the same session for Ferrari. 

Browning finished third in F3 last year and explained how he is looking to emulate Bortoleto’s approach to F2.

“It was a fantastic performance and he really started to pick up towards the end of the year,” Browning said about Bortoleto. “That is exactly my goal – try and be consistent, try not to make the rookie mistakes. Just be conservative, but also attack when it is there to be attacked. When you have the car and you have the confidence underneath you to not make mistakes, go for it. I am feeling the confidence now.”

Rodin’s Alex Dunne was also quick throughout the session and will start fourth, while Fornaroli’s Invicta teammate, Roman Staněk, will be fifth after he posted his best qualifying performance since he took third at Monza in 2023. 

The Czech driver will share the third row with F2 veteran Richard Verschoor, ahead of Sami Meguetounif in seventh and Van Amersfoort’s Rafael Villagómez in a career-best eighth. Rounding out the top 10 are Dino Beganovic and Joshua Dürksen, who won the sprint race from second on the grid last time out and will start from pole for tomorrow’s sprint race.

Gabriele Minì, who took pole in Australia before being penalised for impeding Jak Crawford, could only manage 12th in qualifying today. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency