Roman Staněk took the first pole position of his three-year Formula 2 career at the Hungaroring on Friday, followed closely by Invicta teammate Leonardo Fornaroli. Feeder Series spoke to the pair about their recent form and the split strategy that put them on the front row for Sunday’s feature race.

By Calla Kra-Caskey

Staněk has had strong Friday form throughout the season, qualifying in the top 10 eight times and outqualifying championship leader Fornaroli five times in 10 rounds. The Czech driver has also picked up pace as the season has gone along, outqualifying his teammate four times in the past five rounds and taking a podium – including a feature race win last weekend at Spa – in each of the past three. 

“I don’t think there has been something that I have changed,” he told Feeder Series in the post-qualifying press conference. “Since the beginning of the season, you try to work as hard as you can, especially extracting the best in every session you can, working with the team. 

“Sometimes it doesn’t go your way, but you cannot give up. You just have to keep going because especially the F2 season is very long.”

Staněk was strong from the beginning of qualifying in Hungary. Arvid Lindblad opened the session with a 1:30.319. After everyone on track completed their first push laps, Staněk held provisional pole with a 1:29.167 ahead of the MP Motorsport duo of Oliver Goethe and Richard Verschoor. 

On his second push lap on the same tyre, Staněk improved by 0.060 seconds, and while other drivers also improved, including Goethe and Verschoor, none were able to best the Invicta driver’s initial or subsequent laps. 

The only driver yet to set a time at that point was Fornaroli, who had opted for a different strategy. He peeled out of the pits around 10 minutes in the session, and with just over 15 minutes to go, he posted his first flying lap of 1:28.935, good enough for provisional pole. Seconds later, however, he was dinged for exceeding track limits in the first corner and lost the lap, sending him back down to 22nd. 

Fornaroli fit in a cool lap and managed to start his second flying lap just before drivers on the primary qualifying strategy left the pits, thereby avoiding traffic. His second attempt was good enough for fourth, 0.311s off of Staněk’s time. 

Drivers began their second run of push laps with around nine minutes left on the clock, and Staněk once again lowered the benchmark time to a 1:28.779. Jak Crawford, who had ended the first run in 16th, set an excellent lap that vaulted him from 19th to second on the timing tower, 0.173s behind Staněk. 

The pair were followed by Luke Browning and Joshua Dürksen on the provisional second row. With 2:45 remaining, Sebastián Montoya briefly slotted into fourth ahead of Dürksen with a 1:29.065 before he lost the lap to a close track limits violation in Turn 14, dropping him to 18th. 

Fornaroli left the pits for his own final run with under five minutes remaining. As he warmed up his tyres, several drivers who had completed their run plans started entering the pits, once again giving the Invicta driver a clearer track than those before him. He started his final flyer with 45 seconds on the clock and ultimately put up a 1:28.925, good enough for second behind his teammate. 

Staněk and Fornaroli both agreed that they had been working well together through the season. In the case of their split qualifying, they both implied that they decided their strategy independently from one another.

“Already since free practice I knew we were going to be strong in qualifying, especially Roman. He was very, very fast, even too he’s a bit sick!” Fornaroli said. “I did a slightly different strategy compared to everyone else. I was the only one almost running alone on track. But it worked pretty well. 

“With the team, we make things simple. We don’t want to complicate too much things and it seems like it’s working.” 

“It’s up to the communication between the team and myself. I always give my suggestion and the team gives their suggestion and we find the best compromise,” Staněk said. “Today I felt like it’s good to go with the pack at the beginning than to wait in the middle when Leo was doing his first run and then go towards the end, also with the pack.” 

“But in quali it doesn’t really matter what strategy you do,” he added. “You know that the tyres, especially on a track like this, are going to last one or two push [laps] maximum, so you always want to have clear track in front of you and that’s the most important thing.” 

Goethe qualified sixth, Victor Martins seventh, and Lindblad eighth. Alex Dunne and Pepe Martí finished the session ninth and tenth and will start tomorrow’s sprint from the front row. Verschoor, who is three points behind Fornaroli in the standings, qualified 11th, missing out on the reversed grid by 0.056s.

Rodin Motorsport received a fine for an unsafe release of Dunne’s car during the session. Montoya, meanwhile, received a three-place grid drop for both races after he was found to have impeded Kush Maini at Turn 2. 

Header Photo Credit: Dutch Photo Agency