After a mechanical issue ended his push for pole on Saturday, Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli fended off a storming Arvid Lindblad to take victory on home soil in the Formula 2 sprint race at Monza, while Joshua Dürksen took his first podium since the Austria sprint. Feeder Series spoke to Fornaroli and Invicta team principal James Robinson after the race.

By Calla Kra-Caskey

“It was a great race,” Fornaroli said in the post-sprint press conference. “I’m happy we showed that we had really nice pace. Unfortunately yesterday, I had an electrical issue in qualifying so I couldn’t end my run, so [I’m] happy we showed that we’re quite quick.”

Dino Beganovic got a good start from his reverse-grid pole position, maintaining first. Sami Meguetounif initially held onto second, but he was passed by Fornaroli into the Roggia chicane. 

Dürksen, starting from fourth, had a difficult first lap. He was passed at the start by Lindblad before cutting the Roggia chicane, allowing another Red Bull junior in Ollie Goethe by. At the end of the lap, Roman Staněk passed Dürksen in the Parabolica for sixth, but Dürksen immediately passed him back down the main straight. 

On lap two, Alex Dunne and Kush Maini went side by side at Curva Grande as they squabbled over eighth. Maini went wide and spun across the gravel trap, causing a safety car. The stewards found that Dunne pushed Maini off track, and gave him a 10-second penalty and two penalty points for the incident – bringing him to 10 total points, just two away from the 12 needed for a race ban. Maini retired from the race.

The race restarted on lap five. Fornaroli got a good slipstream from Beganovic and looked primed to overtake the Swede, but he locked up and went straight at the first corner. Although he returned to track ahead, he quickly ceded the place. 

Fornaroli did, however, take the lead on lap eight on the start-finish straight. A lap later, Lindblad, who had passed Meguetounif for third on the restart, went to the inside of Beganovic in the first corner to take second. 

“When I found myself P1, I had Arvid behind myself, through the whole race. He was all the time in DRS,” Fornaroli said. “I had to drive perfectly without any mistakes, otherwise he was going to catch me.” 

Was there ever a time he felt safe from the Briton’s charge? 

“Only in the last lap when I saw he went off the DRS,” Fornaroli said. 

Invicta’s team principal, James Robinson, saw it a bit differently. 

“Leo, obviously, made a mistake trying to pass Beganovic… quite a big flat spot on the front right,” he told Feeder Series afterwards in the paddock. 

“[He] managed it really, really well. Typical Forna race, really. This is what’s becoming typical of him now. He just managed the gap magnificently. 

“Especially out of T11, out of Parabolica, he was phenomenal. Every single lap pulling two or three tenths on Lindblad, and that’s all you need.”

Behind the leading trio, another three-way fight had emerged. On lap six, Dunne overtook Staněk around Curva Grande after unsettling him with a big lunge into the first chicane. Just ahead of him, Dürksen overtook Meguetounif at the first chicane on lap eight. The next lap Dunne attempted to repeat his move on Staněk, but Meguetounif bounced through the first chicane and back in front of Dunne, taking the pair into the gravel. 

This prompted a yellow flag as the pair got back on track, with Dunne in 17th and Meguetounif in 21st, although the Trident driver retired from the race with damage at the end of the lap. The stewards blamed Meguetounif for the incident, handing him a five-second penalty that will be converted into a three-place grid drop for tomorrow’s race. 

There was further drama on lap 14. Goethe, who had been challenging Beganovic for his first F2 podium, attempted an overtake around the outside at Turn 1. He couldn’t make it stick ahead of the chicane, which he cut, before spinning into the grass as he attempted to rejoin. Finding no traction, he spun again, eventually managing to make it back onto the track in 16th. 

Just behind Goethe’s botched overtake and spin, Pepe Martí and Gabriele Minì were battling for the final points-paying position in the midst of their comeback charges from 13th and 15th respectively. As they reached the first corner, Minì locked up and bailed to the escape road, returning to the circuit in seventh. Martí attempted to take the chicane as usual but ran wide into the gravel, dropping him to 10th behind Rafael Villagómez and feature race polesitter Luke Browning. Villagómez then ran off track at the second Lesmo, allowing Browning past immediately and Martí and Montoya to overtake him later in the lap. 

Trident’s day went from bad to worse on lap 17, when smoke started billowing from the back of Max Esterson’s car. He pulled off the circuit and onto the support paddock road between Turns 10 and 11, avoiding the need for a full safety car deployment. Goethe ducked into the pit lane to switch to supersofts and made it out shortly before a virtual safety car was called. 

When the VSC ended on lap 19, Verschoor used his experience to get a much better restart and sneak past Staněk for fifth into Roggia. 

Up ahead, Lindblad appeared to be one of the fastest drivers on track. He had set the fastest lap, a 1:33.807, on lap 15 while chasing down Fornaroli and remained on the Invicta’s tail towards the end of the race, but his push for victory unravelled when he went slightly wide on the exit of the Ascari Chicane. That mistake caused him to lose DRS – as well as a piece of his floor. 

“In the beginning, when I got into second, I didn’t feel like I had the pace to take the lead and drive away, so I was trying to wait to build a tyre delta and go toward the end,” Lindblad said after the race. “But I think we started degrading at the same point, so when I wanted to try and push to take the lead, I was just struggling a bit with the tyres, so I wasn’t able to.”

Fornaroli took victory 1.662 seconds ahead of Lindblad. Although Beganovic crossed the line third, he received a five-second penalty for a virtual safety car infringement, promoting Dürksen to the podium. 

The win, combined with Verschoor’s fourth place finish and Crawford’s failure to score, means that Fornaroli leads the championship by 24 points, nearly a whole feature race victory’s worth. But with seven races remaining, the title is far from a guarantee. 

“I approach [the final rounds] like every weekend,” he told Feeder Series. “I mean, if you have a good gap in the championship it doesn’t mean you can relax. Because as we saw yesterday anything can happen. The level is incredibly high, so you always have to be at your top to perform. 

“For sure the experience from last year helped because it helped me to stay a bit more composed during situations and big pressure,” he added, pointing to the F3 title he won at the final corner in Monza last year. 

Beganovic’s penalty dropped him to sixth behind Staněk, and Minì and Browning rounded out the points. Goethe used his supersoft tyres to set the fastest lap of 1:33.658 on the final lap of the race, but since he finished 18th, Lindblad retained the extra point. 

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency