Campos Racing’s Pepe Martí won his third race of the 2025 Formula 2 season, narrowly beating Alex Dunne after the two drivers fought until the very end. Feeder Series heard from the top three drivers and spoke to Dunne about his strength in tyre management.

By Tori Turner

Reverse-grid polesitter Martí had the best launch off the starting grid, maintaining his position heading into Turn 1. Dunne was slow off the line, which helped Arvid Lindblad pass him exiting Turn 1 for second place. Dunne almost lost third to Victor Martins but defended against the Frenchman to stay ahead.

At the end of the first lap, Gabriele Minì hit the back of Roman Staněk’s car as they went through Turn 9, causing the Czech driver to spin and drop down the order. Minì later received a 10-second time penalty for the incident. 

Having started 11th, title contender Richard Verschoor passed MP Motorsport teammate Oliver Goethe for eighth around the outside of Turn 2 on the second lap. Ahead of them, Luke Browning overtook championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli for sixth on the following lap. 

By lap six, a large DRS train had formed from Martins in fourth to Staněk in 19th. At that point in the race, Lindblad was the fastest driver on the track and was closing the gap to his teammate in first. The Briton finally made a move for the lead at the start of lap eight down the inside at Turn 1 and briefly snatched the position, but Martí fought back and retook the position heading into Turn 2. 

“We know it’s a [tyre] deg race, so I wasn’t really worried in that sense,” Martí said in the post-race press conference about the battle with his teammate. “I knew that if Arvid was wanting to push a lot at the beginning, then I knew it was going to be okay for me at the end. When he made a move, it was a solid movement to Turn 1 and I just recovered it well in T2, so it was fair racing.”

The battle between the two Campos drivers brought Dunne back into contention for the race lead, especially after Lindblad fell out of DRS range of his teammate on lap 14.

The move for second came at the start of lap 19, when Dunne made a last-minute lunge into Turn 1 and overtook Lindblad. Lindblad’s tyres were in a much worse condition as he had used them up during the fight with Martí, which also aided Dunne in his pass. 

Rodin Motorsport’s Dunne noted that tyre management was one of his strengths.

“It’s just something that’s always suited me,” Dunne told Feeder Series. “With the way our car is, we always seem to be naturally a little bit stronger when it’s hot as well. I wouldn’t say we do anything differently, to be honest. It’s just a feeling that I’m relatively comfortable with and I always seem to adapt to it well when it’s hot.”

The exchange dropped Lindblad into the clutches of Martins, who attempted a move around the outside of Turn 2 on lap 20. The Frenchman was unsuccessful, however, and Crawford capitalised on Martins’ poor exit from Turn 3 to pass him for fourth. The DAMS driver soon set his sights ahead on a struggling Lindblad, who had fallen 3.7s behind Dunne at the start of lap 21.

Just as Lindblad and Crawford were fighting for the final podium position on lap 22, a safety car was called out for Sebastián Montoya’s stranded car on the start-finish straight. 

Because of the position of Montoya’s car, the pit entry was closed, preventing any drivers from making the switch to soft tyres for the final laps. Minì had previously done so on lap 18 whilst serving his penalty, but he could only manage 14th in the end.

Whilst the drivers were under safety car conditions, Martí suddenly slowed just before crossing the start-finish line at the end of lap 22. Dunne, going faster, momentarily drew alongside him while swerving to the right to avoid a collision. After the race, Dunne was summoned to the stewards for a yellow flag infringement, as was Martí for driving erratically under the safety car. The stewards investigated both incidents but found no evidence of an infringement on either driver’s part. 

Racing resumed at the start of lap 26, giving drivers just three more laps left to make progress. Crawford was straight on the back of Lindblad once more but was unable to find an opportunity to pass initially. On the final lap, Crawford got ahead around the outside of Turn 1, but the two drivers were still side by side heading into Turn 2 before the American made the move stick on the inside line.

“It was a bit rough at times. I felt like he was just swerving everywhere I went, but that’s how it is,” Crawford said. “Once I saw he was defending really hard, I knew I was going to have to wait until the end when he was really pushing to the limit of his tyres and I was catching him three to four tenths in the last corner every time.

“I knew if I was kind of close, I could get a good exit off the last corner and almost be attacking. Unfortunately, [on] the best run I had, there was no DRS activated, so I had to wait until the last moment.”

Dunne hounded Martí all the way to the final few corners and tried to go around the outside of Martí at the penultimate corner. He had to run wide as Martí defended, however, which ultimately gave the Red Bull junior enough of an advantage to take victory by just 0.225s. Martí also set the race’s fastest lap on lap 27.

Having fought for the win in the early stages of the race, Lindblad held onto fourth across the line but received a five-second time penalty after the race for leaving the track at Turn 3 and gaining a lasting advantage on Victor Martins during their lap 20 battle. The penalty dropped him from fourth to 10th.

Luke Browning crossed the line in fifth after passing Martins down the inside of Turn 1 on the restart. The Briton, however, also received a five-second penalty for gaining a lasting advantage when he cut the Turn 6–7 chicane on the final lap in order to remain ahead of his fellow Williams junior. 

Martins ended up fourth after the two penalties were applied, marking his fifth top-five finish of the season. Despite locking up at Turn 1 on lap 27, Fornaroli held onto fifth ahead of Verschoor, thereby extending his points lead over the Dutchman by one point. 

Goethe finished seventh from fifth on the grid, while Beganovic ended up eighth and took the last points-paying position after Lindblad’s penalty. Maini and Lindblad rounded out the top 10, with Browning classified 12th after his penalty.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency