Victor Martins has the best qualifying record on the Formula 2 grid, but he has struggled to transfer this speed into races and sits only ninth in the standings. He spoke with Feeder Series in the Silverstone paddock about his topsy-turvy 2025 season as well as his switch in driver academies from Alpine to Williams earlier this year.

By Martin Lloyd

ART Grand Prix driver Martins sits ninth in the F2 standings with 52 points, 70 away from championship leader Richard Verschoor. After his tough second year in the series in 2024, when he finished seventh in the standings despite pre-season hopes for a title challenge, Martins decided to continue for a third campaign in 2025.

Historically, drivers who have raced for three seasons in F2 have struggled to find full-time F1 opportunities – even if they have won the championship. Felipe Drugovich and Martins’ former ART teammate Théo Pourchaire were the 2022 and 2023 F2 champions respectively in their third seasons. They have so far failed to find F1 seats; Drugovich is a reserve driver at Aston Martin, while Pourchaire races for Algarve Pro Racing in the European Le Mans Series.

Some drivers had chosen to leave F2 after two years as they felt that F1 opportunities would not materialise. So why did Martins choose to stay?

“I don’t see any championship other than F2 to bring me closer to F1,” Martins said. “The goal is still very clear, especially also with Williams. The project we have now together is to help me to achieve this. 

“My racing season, which is F2, is to just show myself – winning races, doing pole positions and then beside that getting some good support from Williams, being in the simulator, having TPC days, earning some FP1 [sessions] and that’s it. 

“I’m not looking at the past, who else has done the same or who has done different. It’s just sometimes a matter of where you are and when. It’s just about timing and opportunity. [I] just need to maximise what I have in my hands and it will be good.”

In his own pursuit of a seat at the top table, Martins has a new opportunity in the form of the Williams Racing Driver Academy, which he joined at the start of the season. He parted ways with Alpine at the end of 2024 after spending six years with the French marque’s junior programme. 

“It [the interest from Williams] was fully expected,” Martins added. “I wasn’t surprised that another F1 team was going to want me, to get myself into an academy, because I know what I have done in the past.

“With Alpine, we got to a point where we were not aligned anymore. We had different goals, different targets and the story ended up there. With Williams it was quite natural, [and] I already showed good performance, especially in quali.

“Last year was not ideal. Getting the new car, we struggled quite a lot compared to 2023, but I have always been up there since the beginning of my career. I was quite confident that at some point I will get these kinds of opportunities.”

In 2025, Martins has qualified in the top three at all but one of the eight rounds, but he has faced a torrent of bad luck that has limited his ability to score in feature races. ART have also struggled to find the race pace that helped them deliver their 2023 double championship with Pourchaire and Martins at the wheel, and they sit eighth with 58 total points. 

“For sure, it’s tough to accept sometimes,” Martins told Feeder Series. “[We are] quite frustrated that most of the time we didn’t maximise our position on Sunday in terms of points, so definitely not happy with that. We need to just analyse where it’s coming from. 

“It feels like it was always something different happening, either bad luck, a crash that wasn’t my fault, or some issues on the car that we couldn’t do anything [about] or sometimes just missing performance. But missing performance is just like 10 per cent, probably, of what we missed in terms of points scored. It’s difficult, but I think we are getting there.” 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency