Dino Beganovic took his first Formula 2 pole on Friday in a shortened qualifying session at Imola, beating Sebastián Montoya and Victor Martins by just a few thousandths each. The 21-year-old Ferrari junior spoke to Feeder Series about his new mindset at the post-session press conference. 

By Martin Lloyd

The Swede set the fastest eligible lap time, a 1:27.418, just seconds before a red flag came out with 5:59 remaining when Kush Maini crashed at Tamburello. With F1’s second free practice due to start at 17:00 local time, race organisers deemed that the session could not be restarted and called off the remainder of qualifying at 16:33 local. 

Until Beganovic’s final lap, Martins had been the pacesetter for much of the session. Alex Dunne had set the initial benchmark of a 1:27.827 before Martins set a stunning 1:27.424, 10 and a half minutes into the session. The only driver to come close on the first runs was Invicta’s Leonardo Fornaroli, who was 0.278 seconds behind Martins, with Dunne, Arvid Lindblad and Luke Browning all four tenths behind. 

After the field pitted for new tyres, Beganovic and Montoya managed to overhaul Martins. Lindblad showed even stronger pace and set a lap 0.233s faster than Beganovic, though he crossed the line moments after the red flag had been thrown. Since that lap could not be counted, the Campos driver was forced to settle for sixth on the grid for Sunday’s feature race. 

For Beganovic, the pole represents the highlight of his fledgling F2 career, which began with a two-round stint at the end of 2024 with DAMS. 

“We were straight on the pace at the end of last year when I jumped in the F2,” Beganovic told Feeder Series, “[but] not as much in the beginning of this year. We had some struggles in the beginning of the season, but now coming to this part of the season, coming back to Europe, it feels like a new championship for me. 

“That’s the mindset I have, a new beginning. That’s how I’m going to approach it, and [I will] keep looking that way until the end of the season or at least for the next couple of races.”

The Hitech driver’s pole position came during a period of internal turmoil for his team. Director William Oakes was arrested last week at the team’s base in Silverstone on a charge of transferring criminal property. The arrest was made public on Thursday 8 May. Younger brother Oliver Oakes, his fellow director and Hitech’s longtime team principal, had resigned as team principal of the Alpine F1 Team on Tuesday 6 May.

Just 0.003s behind Beganovic, Prema Racing’s Montoya qualified second on the grid for the feature race, by far his best qualifying result in the series. It is also his best qualifying performance since he started on pole at the second Dubai round of the 2022 FRegional Asia season.

Martins, 0.006s behind Beganovic, was visibly disappointed with third place, shaking his head after the red flag prevented him from improving his time. Fornaroli’s earlier time secured him fourth place ahead of Dunne and Lindblad, with Beganovic’s Hitech teammate Browning in seventh.

Oliver Goethe ran into the gravel at Acque Minerali earlier in the session but recovered to qualify eighth. Maini set the ninth-fastest time but lost it as a result of causing the red flag, elevating DAMS teammate Jak Crawford to ninth and ART’s Ritomo Miyata to 10th and reverse-grid pole for tomorrow’s sprint race. 

Pepe Martí, second in the championship, finished 11th, while championship leader Richard Verschoor had a torrid day and could only qualify 19th. He faces a challenging battle to salvage points from the weekend given the lack of overtaking opportunities available at the Imola circuit. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency