The Formula 2 paddock completed its final round before the summer break in Budapest this weekend. Leonardo Fornaroli took an assured feature race win, extending his lead at the top of the standings, while Campos driver Pepe Martí secured his third sprint race win of the season. Feeder Series analyses the key takeaways from the weekend. 

By Martin Lloyd 

Fornaroli’s Invicta Racing team dominated the weekend. After Luke Browning of Hitech topped practice, Invicta’s Roman Staněk took pole position on Friday, with teammate Fornaroli joining him on the front row. Pepe Martí held off Alex Dunne to win the sprint race by just 0.225s before Fornaroli was the class of the field in the feature, overcoming a five-second penalty to secure first place ahead of Staněk. 

• Pre-weekend roundtable: What’s giving Miyata and Browning confidence for the rest of the F2 season? 
• Qualifying report and quotes: Staněk leads Invicta 1-2 on split strategy in Hungaroring qualifying
• Sprint race report and quotes: Martí beats Dunne in last-lap battle for Hungary F2 sprint victory 
• Feature race report and quotes: Fornaroli heads Invicta 1-2 in Hungary F2 feature to extend points lead

1. Fornaroli dominates for the first time 

In his debut F2 season, Fornaroli has made a habit of picking up consistent points without threatening the top step of the podium. In the first half of the season, he failed to score only in two races but did not win in any. At Silverstone, that pattern changed with his sprint race win, and Fornaroli has since added another two wins at Spa and Budapest. 

His Hungaroring victory, his first Sunday triumph in F2, marked the first time the Italian driver has controlled a feature race. Despite his lack of experience in doing so – Fornaroli’s last single-seater win before Silverstone came four years prior – the 20-year-old was completely assured in his victory. He ran close behind teammate Staněk in the first stint before the Czech driver pitted at the end of lap 15. 

After pitting on lap 16, Fornaroli emerged ahead because of his continued searing pace on soft tyres and Staněk’s difficulty with bringing his new medium tyres up to a good working temperature. By contrast, Fornaroli quickly brought his tyres to life, and he began to build a gap at the front.

There were brief scares for Fornaroli when he was investigated for a virtual safety car infringement and then for speeding in the pit lane, the latter of which incurred him a five-second penalty. But Fornaroli was able to build the necessary gap, maintaining a comfortable buffer to his teammate for much of the closing stages. After the penalty was applied at the chequered flag, he had a gap of 2.152s to Staněk. For a driver who had not produced dominant displays for much of his career, the win marked a major evolution in Fornaroli’s driving

The result is that Fornaroli has extended his championship lead to 17 points with four rounds remaining.  A second successive championship win is still a long way out of reach for the Italian, who has amassed 154 points with 156 still on the table. But with such a well-managed first F2 feature race win, he has put himself in prime position to take it. 

2. Staněk continues his impressive form

Fornaroli’s teammate Staněk is currently putting together his best campaign to date in his third season of F2. The 21-year-old’s switch to Invicta has paid dividends, and he has enjoyed a particular purple patch in the last four rounds. 

He followed sprint race podiums at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone with a feature race win at Spa before taking pole at the Hungaroring by 0.146s over Fornaroli to reassert himself as the man in form. He led Fornaroli away from Sunday’s rolling start and faced no threats until the pit stop phase.

Staněk will rue his failure to warm the tyres quickly enough, but in any case, he lacked the pace relative to his teammate in the second stint. Nonetheless, he effectively defended against Jak Crawford, helping Fornaroli build up a gap in the race and ultimately extend his championship lead over the American driver.

Staněk’s fourth podium in as many rounds has moved him into eighth in the drivers’ standings, while also helping Invicta to tighten their grip on the lead of the teams’ championship. After their first 1-2 in four years, they now lead Campos Racing by 42 points. 

3. A solid weekend for the other championship contenders

Fornaroli may have taken the headlines with his feature race win, but the four other drivers closest to him in the championship each enjoyed solid weekends. The top five of Fornaroli, Crawford, Richard Verschoor, Luke Browning and Alex Dunne each scored points on Sunday. That was in marked contrast to the Spa event, where Crawford and Verschoor failed to score across the weekend. 

DAMS’ Crawford was particularly strong behind winner Fornaroli, taking third place in both races and a total of 21 points across the weekend. Hitech’s Browning and MP Motorsport’s Verschoor were fourth and fifth respectively in the feature race, although Browning has extended his non-scoring streak in sprints to four rounds. 

Dunne managed only ninth on Sunday, but his second-place finish in the sprint ensures that he remains in touch with the top four. Just 30 points separate him from Fornaroli heading into the next round at Monza, where the tide of the title battle turned last year.

With four rounds to go last year, Gabriel Bortoleto was 36 points behind championship leader Isack Hadjar, but the Brazilian catapulted himself back into contention with a feature race win after starting last at Monza and took the championship at the end of the season. With the top five this season scoring consistently, the battle is still wide open. 

4. Martí’s sprint win may not be enough

Pepe Martí has taken three race wins this season, as many as any other driver on the grid. Based on that fact, he would be expected to sit at the sharp end of the drivers’ standings, yet he is sixth, 57 points behind championship leader Fornaroli. Each of his victories have come in sprint races – in Jeddah, Spielberg and now Budapest. 

At the Hungaroring, he qualified 10th and thus started on pole for the sprint, beating out Dunne to take victory by just 0.225s. In the feature, however, he was only able to compete for minor points. Race control decided to begin the race with a rolling start because of damp patches on the track, removing the key opportunity for Martí to improve his position given the difficulty in overtaking at the Hungaroring. Nonetheless, a better qualifying session could have put the Campos driver in the hunt for higher honours. 

Martí has scored 44 of his 97 points this season in sprints – more than 45 per cent of his 2025 haul. This is the highest percentage of total points scored in sprints by any of the top 10 in the drivers’ standings. The Red Bull junior driver is without a feature race podium, however, and while he has been able to fight at the front in reverse-grid scenarios, he has struggled to come through from further back in feature races. This also tallies with his figures from 2024, when he scored 32 of his 62 points – more than 50 per cent – in sprint events.

Martí clearly has the speed in races, but his qualifying has let him down. He is without a top-five qualifying position this season, and while he has won races three of the four times he started in the top five, his Friday form restricts his ability to score heavily on Sundays. Martí is still the lead Campos in the standings and is not completely out of drivers’ championship contention in his sophomore F2 season, but he needs to translate his sprint form into feature success to stand a chance of catching the top five. 

Results and standings after round 10 at the Hungaroring

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Roman Staněk, 1:28.779	Leonardo Fornaroli, +0.146s	Jak Crawford, +0.173s
Sprint race (28 laps)	Pepe Martí, 46:29.807	Alex Dunne, +0.225s	Jak Crawford, +1.964s
Feature race (37 laps)	Leonardo Fornaroli, 1:00.13.630	Roman Staněk. +2.152s	Jak Crawford, +4.716s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Leonardo Fornaroli, 154	Invicta Racing, 231
P2	Jak Crawford, 137	Campos Racing, 189
P3	Richard Verschoor, 135	Hitech, 183
P4	Luke Browning, 125	DAMS, 163
P5	Alex Dunne, 124	MP Motorsport, 158
P6	Pepe Martí, 97	Rodin Motorsport, 127
P7	Arvid Lindblad, 92	Prema Racing, 107
P8	Roman Staněk, 77	ART Grand Prix, 94
P9	Sebastián Montoya, 72	AIX Racing, 23
P10	Victor Martins, 69	Van Amersfoort Racing, 11

Read our takeaways from the previous round at Spa here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency