Arvid Lindblad converted his reverse-grid pole into the Formula 2 sprint race win at Abu Dhabi, fending off AIX Racing’s Joshua Dürksen, who was faster in the opening and closing stages. The Campos Racing driver spoke to Feeder Series and selected media about his win in his final F2 weekend before his F1 graduation. 

By Finjo Muschlien

Lindblad was F2’s most talked-about driver earlier this week following the announcement on Tuesday that he would step up to F1 with Racing Bulls for 2026. But with the focus ahead of the F2 finale on the teams’ championship and the four-way fight for second in the drivers’ championship, the spotlight only shone on Lindblad again when he stood on pole position on the reversed grid for Saturday’s sprint race at the Yas Marina Circuit.

Lindblad had the best start of the frontrunners and maintained his lead going into Turn 1 ahead of Dürksen, last year’s feature race winner. ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins dropped from third to fifth at the start with a slow getaway and got demoted to sixth when Hitech’s Dino Beganovic passed him at Turn 7 later on the opening lap. The stewards noted Beganovic for forcing Martins off the track but did not investigate it further. 

Helped by Martins’ poor start, Lindblad’s teammate Nikola Tsolov jumped from fifth to third at the start, passing fellow Red Bull junior Oliver Goethe off the line in just his third F2 race. 

In the battle for the lead, Lindblad was soon under pressure from Dürksen, who set the fastest lap on lap two as Tsolov fell to two seconds off the lead. With the aid of DRS, Dürksen came within two tenths of Lindblad at Turn 9 on lap three and within three tenths on lap four at the same spot, but the Paraguayan could never launch an attack. Lindblad then set the fastest lap on lap four to give himself a bit of breathing room. 

A virtual safety car was deployed on lap eight as Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett came to a stop just before Turn 5, a huge cloud of smoke trailing from his car. 

The virtual safety car ended just one lap later. At the restart, Dürksen stayed close to Lindblad but made a mistake at Turn 12, going wide and losing two seconds. 

“For sure, when I saw that he dropped back, it took off a little bit of pressure,” Lindblad told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “But I was focused on my own job. I was still working on things in the car, so I couldn’t really let off because I knew if I did that, then he would be back.”

A second virtual safety car interrupted the race on lap 21 to retrieve an endplate from Jak Crawford’s car, which flew off at Turn 6 the previous lap following contact with Martins.

Dürksen briefly got within 0.7s of Lindblad as drivers were notified of the end of the virtual safety car period, but the gap was back to 1.7s when the race resumed. Dürksen, however, was much faster than Lindblad in the final two and a half laps, closing the gap down to less than one second entering the final lap. Dürksen had DRS on the straight approaching Turn 6, but it wasn’t enough to launch an attack there or at Turn 9. 

After 23 laps, Lindblad won by 0.982s ahead of Dürksen, who has now scored a podium in every round since Monza. In just his third F2 start,Tsolov scored his maiden podium, albeit 9.605s behind his Campos teammate.

“I could see that Joshua was good in the first part of the lap, especially sector two,” the Red Bull junior said. “I don’t think sector one was particularly different. He was fast the whole race and I had to focus on my bit and try to not make any mistakes.

“It wasn’t easy. I think we were really good the first half of the race and then I didn’t manage everything perfectly, so I gave Joshua a bit of a sniff in the second half of the race. Few things to work on, but still it was good enough to take the win.

“You want to manage as much as you can to a point where you don’t get passed. Joshua was pushing a lot in the first five laps, so I had to push a lot as well. Otherwise, I’d get passed. He was my reference on how much I needed to do.”

Hitech’s Beganovic came fourth in the sprint race, collecting five crucial points for Hitech. The Swede started seventh and gained a place at the start as Prema’s Sebastián Montoya bogged down off the line. After passing Martins for fifth later on the opening lap, Beganovic began pursuing Goethe, first attacking him for fourth on lap six but only passing him after several attempts on lap 17 by swooping around the outside at Turn 9.

His teammate Luke Browning was less fortunate. Having started in 17th position, the Williams junior pitted at the end of lap 19, fitting supersoft tyres to his car. He set the fastest lap of the race on lap 22 but scored no points, with the extra point going to Lindblad.

Goethe came fifth ahead of DAMS’ Crawford, who scored three important points for his fight for second in the drivers’ championship. Martins and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne came seventh and eighth, rounding out the points scorers. Feature race polesitter Roman Staněk attacked Gabriele Minì for ninth on laps 18 and 19 but without success, and the Prema Racing driver led his Invicta Racing rival home to complete the top 10.

Behind them, newly signed McLaren juniors Leonardo Fornaroli of Invicta and Richard Verschoor of MP Motorsport disputed 11th place late in the race. On lap 21, just after the virtual safety car ended, Fornaroli gained an advantage over Verschoor by cutting the chicane at Turns 6 and 7. That manoeuvre earned the new F2 champion a 10-second time penalty post-race, demoting him to 17th. 

Invicta’s failure to score for only the second time this season leaves one title still to be decided tomorrow. The Norfolk team lead the teams’ championship on 298 points, now 32 ahead of Hitech and 42 ahead of Campos, who could only take the crown  with a 1-2 finish in the feature race.

There were no position changes in the battle for second position in the drivers’ championship with 26 still on offer tomorrow. Crawford’s sixth place put him on 173 points, three points ahead of Verschoor in third. Browning trails the pair on 162 points, and Dunne remains in outside contention on 150 points. Second-place qualifier Crawford is the only one of the quartet who will start from the first four rows in the feature race, which begins at 13:15 local.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency