Formula 2 opened the second half of its 2025 season with a maiden victor and the first wet-weather race of the year. Feeder Series takes you through the most exciting developments from Silverstone on track and in the paddock. 

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Victor Martins led practice and qualifying, although damage caused him to fall back in both races. In the sprint race, Leonardo Fornaroli took his first single-seater victory since 2021, joined by Roman Staněk in third for an Invicta Racing double podium. Jak Crawford cruised to a wet feature race victory to end the weekend just six points behind championship leader Richard Verschoor. 

• Pre-weekend roundtable: The F2 paddock explains Silverstone’s unique tyre management challenge
• Qualifying report and quotes: Martins had ‘no doubt’ Silverstone pole was possible as he upholds superb qualifying form
• Sprint race report and quotes: Fornaroli takes first win in four years in Silverstone F2 sprint
• Feature race report and quotes: Crawford wins wet Silverstone F2 feature to close on points lead
• Bonus paddock report: Staněk, Crawford and Martins assess chaotic seven-car scrap at end of Silverstone sprint

1. The championship converges again

It was a weekend of diverging fortunes for the championship frontrunners. After his victory in Austria, Richard Verschoor entered the weekend with a 24-point lead in the championship, but he only qualified seventh, putting him on the back foot for the rest of the weekend. 

In the sprint race, Verschoor started fourth, and despite immediately gaining a place because of Dino Beganovic’s formation lap stall, he fell to 10th thanks to a sluggish start. He managed to pass Arvid Lindblad on lap eight and Victor Martins on lap 21 after the Frenchman was hit by Luke Browning exiting Luffield. A penalty for Browning for causing that collision elevated Verschoor to seventh, where he also finished an unremarkable feature race. 

Alex Dunne, who was disqualified from a second-place finish in Austria, bounced back this weekend, reaffirming his title chances. He qualified second, just 0.065s off of polesitter Victor Martins. In the sprint race, contact with Gabriele Minì cost him a chance at points. The feature race went better for him as he maintained his position, ultimately finishing second after a strong performance in the rain. Despite dropping from second in the standings to third, he gained on Verschoor and now sits just 14 points off the championship lead.

The driver who made up the most ground this weekend was Crawford. The American had a difficult start to the season, failing to score points before the Jeddah feature race in round three. Since then, however, he hasn’t finished a race below sixth. 

Crawford rose from eighth to sixth in the sprint race, surviving a multi-car battle in the final laps and finishing just a thousandth off fifth-placed Joshua Dürksen. In the feature race, he went from third to first in the first corner and controlled the race through changing conditions and a late safety car.

Despite the wet weather and the pressure from Dunne, Crawford stayed cool and never looked in serious danger of losing his lead. His strong performances throughout the weekend promoted him to second in the championship and just six points off the lead, making him a very real title threat.

2. Hitech drivers stun in the wet

It wasn’t just Crawford who impressed in the wet. Hitech, based in Silverstone, started the weekend with Beganovic and Browning qualifying eighth and 12th respectively. But the home team seemed to nail the setup come the races, getting impressive wet-weather performances from both of their drivers and finishing with both cars in the top five on Sunday. 

Briton Browning had what was perhaps the drive of the weekend, if not the season, to drive from 12th to third in the changing conditions. Browning made up three places by the end of the first lap and a further three by the end of lap five. It took him another five laps to overtake Staněk for fifth. On lap 12 he made it past Joshua Dürksen for fourth, and he overtook Williams stablemate Martins for third on lap 18. 

A virtual and then full safety car, and another safety car shortly after the restart at the end of lap 27, prevented Browning from challenging Dunne and Crawford. But his run to the podium was impressive, and he appeared convincingly the fastest in the changing conditions. 

Beganovic also had an impressive feature race. He was set to start the sprint from third before stalling on the grid, ending his chance at a good result. Still, he bounced back in the feature race, going from eighth to fourth. The Swedish driver spent most of the race behind Browning, making overtakes shortly after his teammate did. Late in the race, he benefited from Dürksen’s spin and a poor pit stop for Martins to make it to fourth, his best result since Imola, without overtaking either on track. Nevertheless, it was a strong drive. 

3. Invicta’s Fornaroli and Staněk impress…

Fornaroli made the final improvement on Friday’s qualifying session, pipping Arvid Lindblad for 10th by 0.072s. It turned out to be a crucial moment for his weekend, as it meant he started the sprint race from pole instead of 11th and put him in the prime spot for his first race victory since 2021. 

Win it he did. Fornaroli lost the lead off the line to Kush Maini, but overtook the DAMS driver into Copse on the same lap. He held onto the lead despite a challenge from second-placed Sebastián Montoya, eventually winning by 1.404s. It’s been a year of breaking statistical oddities for the reigning F3 champion, who recently took his first non-finish of any kind since 2022 in the Barcelona feature race. 

Invicta teammate Staněk joined Fornaroli on the podium in third. It was a strong race from the Czech driver, who started seventh but rose through the field and overtook Maini at Stowe for the final podium position on the penultimate lap. Despite completing the overtake off track, he retained the position, as the stewards judged that he was ahead at the apex of the corner and entitled to racing room. 

The sprint race was less successful for the team. Staněk was fourth for much of the race before losing places to Dürksen, Browning and Beganovic. He then spun and lost the engine after his pit stop and couldn’t finish the race. 

Despite starting from 10th and losing positions at the start, Fornaroli still managed to salvage an impressive haul of points. He ran in 11th for most of the race, but upon the safety car restart on lap 27, he passed Verschoor and Arvid Lindblad on track in addition to gaining another two positions when Dürksen spun and Martins slowed with damage. He leaves the weekend fourth in the championship, just 18 points off the lead.

4. …but Martins falters

Silverstone was a microcosm of Martins’ season: he took an impressive qualifying result only for everything to unravel in the feature race.

The Frenchman has impressed on Fridays all season, qualifying in the top three at every race weekend bar Barcelona. He took his first on-track pole position in Silverstone, having been promoted to pole from second in Australia after Minì was penalised. 

Martins’ bad luck started in the sprint race. On the first tour, he made it up from 10th to seventh, the position he occupied for most of the race. On the final lap, he collided with Browning exiting Luffield as the Hitech driver attempted to pass him, losing places to both him and Verschoor. He was promoted to eighth after the race when Browning was penalised. 

In the feature race, things devolved further. Martins got a terrible start from pole, falling from first to fourth in the first corner, although he repassed Staněk for third exiting the Loop. He was then overtaken by Browning on lap 18 and lost positions to Dürksen and Beganovic during the pit cycle. An incident while leaving pit lane caused damage to his front wing, and he retired from the race on the penultimate lap without scoring points. 

Despite such an impressive qualifying record, Martins has only finished on the podium in the Jeddah feature race this season. A combination of bad starts, bad luck and poor race pace – with which he struggled at the last round in Austria – have cost him valuable points. Without a massive turnaround in the second half of the season, Martins’ title charge looks all but over. 

Results and standings after round 8 at Silverstone

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Victor Martins, 1:39.731	Alex Dunne, +0.065s	Jak Crawford, +0.240s
Sprint race (21 laps)	Leonardo Fornaroli, 36:53.118	Sebastián Montoya, +1.404s	Roman Staněk, +9.395s
Feature race (29 laps)	Jak Crawford, 1:03:05.304	Alex Dunne, +0.227s	Luke Browning, +0.838s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Richard Verschoor, 122	Campos Racing, 153
P2	Jak Crawford, 118	DAMS, 142
P3	Alex Dunne, 108	Hitech, 141
P4	Leonardo Fornaroli, 104	MP Motorsport, 134
P5	Luke Browning, 98	Invicta Racing, 133
P6	Arvid Lindblad, 84	Rodin Motorsport, 110
P7	Sebastián Montoya, 72	Prema Racing, 93
P8	Pepe Martí, 69	ART Grand Prix, 58
P9	Victor Martins, 52	AIX Racing, 23
P10	Dino Beganovic, 43	Van Amersfoort Racing, 11

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency