So far this year, Joshua Dürksen has become a Mercedes Formula 1 development driver, won the season-opening F2 race and driven his first laps in a Formula E car. Before ticking off the last of those at the Madrid rookie test, he spoke with Feeder Series about his whirlwind start to 2026.

By Seb Tirado

For the second year in succession, Dürksen took victory in the first F2 race of the season. That is a rare enough achievement in racing, but along with the consecutive Melbourne sprint race wins, the Invicta Racing driver has also done so each time after winning the previous season’s final race in Abu Dhabi.

“It’s funny enough that I’ve done the same thing also the previous year!” Dürksen joked, the humour of the back-to-back back-to-backs not lost on him. “Melbourne’s a great place. I really love Australia, so it [was] just amazing to win the race there.”

But taking victory again was not the only notable circumstance for Dürksen in Melbourne. It was during that weekend that he also received an offer from Citroën Racing to sample Formula E machinery at the series’ rookie test two weeks later at the Circuito de Madrid Jarama. He would be one of six drivers set to drive a Formula E car for the first time at the event, which he was ‘super excited’ about.

“I was always quite interested to test a Formula E car,” he said. “I just love to experience different cars, different environments, different everything, you know?

“The environment is really amazing. I really like it here. It’s very professional, a lot more engineers than in Formula 2. Procedures [are] a lot more complex, and the overall environment is really nice.”

Dürksen finished 12th and 10th in the morning and afternoon sessions respectively and ended up 12th in the overall classification. Speaking to Feeder Series in the media pen after the morning session, Dürksen said he had put few expectations on himself for the test.

“I came here to learn [and] get to know the car, the team, the systems,” he said. “So I was really open-minded, because I want to learn as much as possible in order to have the best performance as quickly as possible. So I’m super flexible, super open, just listening and getting information in.”

With F2’s Jeddah and Bahrain rounds having been cancelled the week before the test, Dürksen and the grid now face a break of up to two months until their next round at Monaco. Despite that, Dürksen is still looking to keep himself on his toes until his next race. 

“The rookie test here in Formula E is also going to help me to stay in a rhythm, then some simulator work with Invicta, probably some simulator work with Mercedes,” he said. “So even though we have a two-month break of driving, I will still be quite active as a racing driver. Of course, mainly on the sim, but the important thing is just to stay active.”

For Dürksen, the call-up to test with Citroën was his second chance to affiliate with a professional manufacturer. At the beginning of February, Mercedes announced that they had signed Dürksen as a development driver, an opportunity that arose because of his performances in the latter stages of the 2025 F2 season, which he finished ninth overall. 

“On the last eight races, I had done six podiums, so basically every race weekend I was on the podium,” he said. “It [had] just been a really great end of the season, and I think this just popped up to them and I guess they were quite interested. And then it kept evolving naturally until we signed.”

Dürksen’s primary duties with Mercedes will involve working in their simulator as well as participating in a Testing of Previous Cars programme. Whether that translates into an F1 free practice opportunity later this year will depend on his results in the coming F2 rounds, Dürksen said.

“Of course, my target is to reach F1,” he said. “Working with Mercedes is a big privilege. I can learn a lot from them, and I think I’m gonna know better more at the middle of the season [about FP1 opportunities]. I still need to do more races in F2. I need to do good performances there, make good results.”

Header photo credit: Jed Leicester / LAT Images