Jak Crawford of DAMS took the Formula 2 pole position at the Baku City Circuit on Friday in a chaotic qualifying session. Three red flags meant that the session never had much rhythm, but the American’s mid-session time, 0.019 seconds quicker than that of championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli, gave him the top spot. 

By Martin Lloyd 

In most qualifying sessions in all series, the fastest lap is set at the end of the session because of track evolution and improved driver confidence. But in F2’s 30-minute session in Baku, Crawford set his fastest time with 17:10 remaining on the clock.

The rest of the field tried to beat the Aston Martin junior, but Victor Martins’ crash and a subsequent incident between Roman Staněk and John Bennett brought out the red flags on separate occasions, putting paid to their efforts to improve. 

“It was a chaotic one,” Crawford said in the post-race press conference. “Lots of stress. You never want to get a pole exactly this way. I don’t really care how I get a pole, but this way I put a lot of pressure on the last two laps before they were red flagged, and it all mattered on the first run. 

“[I’m] happy to survive the chaos, because I almost ran into Victor when he crashed, because I was literally the next car behind him. [I] kept my nose clean, got a good lap in after the first red flag, and it was good enough for pole.”

After topping practice ahead of Crawford, Alex Dunne was the first driver to set a benchmark, punching in a 1:55.846 with 22:10 remaining in the session. As soon as Dunne finished his lap, the red flags were thrown because of a crash involving his Rodin Motorsport teammate Amaury Cordeel. The Belgian driver lost the rear of the car through the fast Turn 13 left-hander, smacking the outside wall. 

The session resumed 11 minutes later, with much of the field in a hurry to get a lap on the board. Dunne led a list of 12 drivers who had completed their first runs, but many of the expected frontrunners were still yet to set a time. Crawford’s first competitive lap put him fifth, and on his first flying lap after the red flag, he crossed the line 0.399 seconds faster than any other driver to claim provisional pole position ahead of Gabriele Minì and Fornaroli, who were separated by just 0.001 seconds. 

Fornaroli displaced his Italian compatriot with 13:25 left in the session, but he couldn’t quite overhaul Crawford’s 1:54.791 at the top of the timesheets.

The field then peeled into the pits and filtered back out for their final runs with just under 10 minutes remaining, but their final runs were interrupted when Victor Martins found the barriers at Turn 3. The red flags returned with 4:22 on the clock. As he was adjudged to be the sole cause of the red flag, Martins’ best lap time was deleted and he lost fourth place. He dropped to 13th in the qualifying classification but will start both races in 12th following the application of Roman Staněk’s penalties.  

After the marshals set to work on removing Martins’ stricken ART and repairing the barriers, the session resumed almost an hour after it started, with theoretically enough time for each driver to set another lap after the resumption. But no sooner had the field started their final laps than the red flags were thrown for a third time.

Staněk had missed his braking point at Turn 1 and entered the run-off. When rejoining the circuit, he failed to spot John Bennett, who was attempting to improve on 15th position. Staněk careered into the Van Amersfoort Racing driver, causing a collision that ended both of their sessions. With only 1:08 on the clock, the session was not resumed.

Like Martins, Staněk lost his best lap time and he dropped from a qualifying position of ninth to 12th. The Czech driver was also handed a five-place grid penalty for both races, meaning that he will start 17th.

The last two incidents meant that no driver could disrupt the top three of Crawford, Minì and Fornaroli. After the session, Minì told Feeder Series how he dealt with the three stoppages.

“It’s always not easy when you have a session with so many breaks,” Minì said. “You have to try and stay in the zone and not think that the session is over before, because it can just change the attitude. We know with these cars you just need a very tiny bit to lose a lot of time every lap. 

“Personally what I did was stay silent, not even ask my engineer if we were going to restart or not, because [I] just was waiting for it to restart, to be honest. I was really happy because in the end, it’s a street circuit, and you can do a bit more differences than a normal circuit.”

Minì made his F2 debut at Baku last year, finishing third in his first sprint race after qualifying eighth. While Prema have struggled to find consistent performance in 2025, the Alpine junior driver has qualified in the top 10 at each of the four street circuits on the calendar, where more risk can bring faster lap times. 

At purpose-built circuits, he has only qualified in the top 10 twice in eight attempts, with his podium in the Spa sprint race his only top-five finish. He qualified fastest at Albert Park but did not take the pole position points after receiving a three-place penalty for impeding Crawford during the session. His third place at Baku was his best result since that performance.

Provided that he lines up on the grid for Sunday’s feature race, Crawford is set to take two points for the pole position and close the gap to championship leader Fornaroli to 35 points. Despite missing out on the top spot, the Invicta Racing driver continued his incredible record of qualifying in the top 10 at every round in his debut season, which has been the foundation of his title challenge. 

Dunne was promoted to fourth by the deletion of Martins’ best lap time, qualifying 0.778 seconds behind Crawford. Luke Browning, second in the drivers’ standings and fifth on the grid, set the exact same time as Dunne, but the Irishman will start in the higher position because he set his time seven seconds earlier.

Pepe Martí matched his best qualifying result of the season with sixth place, while Trident debutant Martinius Stenshorne impressed with seventh. Sebastián Montoya qualified eighth ahead of Dino Beganovic and sprint race polesitter Rafael Villagómez ninth and tenth. 

Richard Verschoor, third in the drivers’ standings, will start 11th and outside the top 10 for the fourth consecutive race weekend. Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad set only the 17th fastest lap, his lowest position of the season, but Staněk’s grid penalty elevates the Campos driver to a starting spot of 16th for both races. Laurens van Hoepen, Trident’s other newcomer, finished 20th.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency