Roman Staněk, Jak Crawford and Victor Martins were three of the drivers fighting for position as part of a race-long DRS train in Formula 2’s 21-lap Silverstone sprint Saturday afternoon. Feeder Series spoke to all three drivers in the paddock about their approach to the contest. 

By Martin Lloyd

Staněk spent almost the entire race in fourth place, having attempted to pass Sebastián Montoya and then Kush Maini for third earlier on. Maini, who had been passed by Montoya at Stowe on lap 15, was losing pace and causing a train of cars to form behind him

Staněk finally passed the Alpine junior driver at Stowe on lap 20, briefly leaving the track before rejoining and completing the move into the Vale chicane. The stewards did not penalise Staněk, deeming that he was ahead at the apex of the corner and not given enough space by Maini. With that, he came home third, 9.395s behind victorious Invicta Racing teammate Leonardo Fornaroli.

“He defended a lot,“but I managed to open the DRS, stay close and stick it around the outside of T15, which felt quite nice. I really enjoyed that race,” Staněk told Feeder Series and selected media at the post-race press conference”

“I knew that I was ahead of him at the apex of the corner, so I just kept it flat on the exit of the corner.… He was defending the whole race a lot, so it was a relief to overtake him.”

Staněk has enjoyed impressive qualifying performances this season only to struggle in feature races, with a best finish of seventh in Monaco. In Barcelona, for example, he started fourth but finished a lowly 11th after his tyres lost performance.

In sprint races, Staněk has found more success. He has scored in five of the eight so far, taking his second consecutive sprint race podium with third on Saturday at Silverstone. 

“You have to be a bit lucky,” Staněk told Feeder Series. “You have to have the car spot on for the pace. The race is long, so many laps, and the pace must be very good. And also from my driving, everyone makes mistakes and it’s quite difficult to take care of the tyres. 

“It’s very difficult. I feel sometimes like it’s two different sports. Quali you really have to go flat out, all in. In these types of corners, you have to be on the limit. In the race, you have to take it a bit easier. You cannot stress the tyres because otherwise, they are going to degrade. You need to race very hard and you need to defend your position and you need to go forward.”

Those three considerations, as explained by Staněk, offer an insight into a driver’s thought process in a race-long battle. Especially at Silverstone, where one overtaking opportunity can quickly result in a loss of position with the track’s flowing layout, drivers must balance risk and reward to avoid being passed or involved in a collision.

Crawford qualified third for the feature race and started eighth for the sprint. The DAMS driver was elevated to seventh when Dino Beganovic stalled on the grid, and he passed Richard Verschoor at the start for sixth.

For Crawford, knowing how the other drivers around him would race played into his own approach. 

“A lot of it is who you’re racing,” the F2 third-year said. “I had Victor behind me. I knew he just wanted to score points and not damage his car. Of course, starting from pole [in the feature race], he didn’t want to risk a grid penalty. 

“For instance, [Joshua] Dürksen was fighting a little bit harder than Victor was, and a couple of the other guys ahead of me were fighting even harder.” 

Crawford spent the rest of the 21 laps chasing Dürksen for fifth place in the middle of a train of cars headed by Maini. The American eventually lost out to Dürksen by just one thousandth of a second after pulling alongside the AIX Racing driver exiting the final corner. 

“It was just a DRS train. There wasn’t much passing,” Crawford said. “I was just waiting for some guys to drop off, but Kush [Maini] was just fast enough that it wasn’t really spread out. It was still a big pack. I know they got spread out at the front – which was what I needed, someone to spread out the field, but they didn’t.

“It became quite a mess in the last three laps. [I was] just trying to hold my position and survive without any damage. We had a good hard battle, but no touching at all, which is nice.”

Not all drivers escaped the late-race chaos without contact. Martins collided with fellow Williams junior driver Luke Browning at Luffield on the final lap. The Briton lost part of his front wing but could still pass Martins, with Verschoor following him through. Browning was later given a 10-second penalty for the incident, elevating Martins to eighth. 

The 2025 season has been difficult for Martins, who has shown exceptional qualifying pace but has toiled in races. He has just one podium, third place in the Sakhir feature race, to show for his efforts.

“For sure, it’s true we are struggling,” he told Feeder Series. “Still, today we were quite good, I think better than a lot of drivers in front, but I wasn’t the strongest. One driver or two was a bit quicker, so definitely we still need to work on it. 

“In quali, I’m quite confident to say we are always the quickest. If everything was going in the right direction, we should have had today I think five poles. Sometimes it was red flags, sometimes other [issues], but in the race it’s not the case.”

As for why he couldn’t achieve the same results in races, Martins explained, “There have been times where we couldn’t race, I had a crash, I had issues, so it’s also difficult. You don’t have the track time to know where to improve compared to the others when we don’t race.

“We need to work on this for sure. Every time we have opportunities because we are always top three in qualifying, so it’s always giving you hope.” 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency