Jak Crawford passed to win sprint FIA F2 race in Imola from Arvid Lindblad, as Tim Tramnitz took glory in F3.
F2:
Pole sitter Ritomo Miyata lost the lead to Crawford at lights out on the run to Turn 2. Lindblad surged up to P3 from fifth on the grid ahead of Browning and Victor Martins in the top five, after the ART Grand Prix driver moved up from eighth. By Lap 4, Crawford had managed to escape out of DRS range to Miyata behind, while despite having DRS to the car ahead, Lindblad couldn’t close in on the ART in front of him.
Browning managed to break away from Martins, leaving Miyata to fend off the British duo behind him in the fight for second, with Crawford building his lead back up to beyond a second by Lap 10. Lindblad attempted to dive to the inside of Turn 2 on Lap 11, but Miyata defended well to retain second position.
One lap later and the Red Bull Junior Team driver made the pass stick, clearing the ART before corner entry at Tamburello. Lap 13 and Miyata had to defend from Browning to keep hold of third into the favoured passing area at Turn 2. Hitech TGR’s Dino Beganovic looked to be lining up a move on Joshua Duerksen for the final points-paying position, but a wide moment out of Variante Alta allowed Roman Stanek to go through for P9.
Browning finally cleared Miyata on Lap 14 into the second corner, with the Japanese driver losing the benefit of DRS. One lap later and it was Martins through on teammate Miyata into Turn 2 for fourth. Stanek’s charge continued as he managed to commit to the outside of Duerksen at the second corner to take P8 from the AIX Racing driver.
Alexander Dunne had told the team he was playing the long game earlier in the race, and he moved into the top five with a pass on Miyata along the main straight. Leonardo Fornaroli had to defend seventh from Invicta Racing teammate Stanek at Turn 2 as the Czech driver applied the pressure with six laps to go.
Lap 22 of 25 and Dunne managed to claw his way to within a second of Martins ahead, who in turn was catching Browning in the fight for the final podium position. The trio were covered by 1.5s entering the penultimate lap, while in front of them, Lindblad had closed in on the race leader and was on the cusp of DRS to the DAMS driver.
Unfortunately for the Campos rookie, they entered the final lap separated by 1.2s and the American driver held on for his first win of the 2025 season. Lindblad made it two Sprint Race podiums in a row in P2, while Browning held off Martins and Dunne to take the final spot on the podium. Miyata wound up sixth for ART ahead of Fornaroli and Stanek, the Invicta duo rounding out the points in seventh and eighth places.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1923724665798734112
UPDATE: Following the conclusion of Saturday afternoon’s Imola Sprint Race, Campos Racing’s Josep María Martí has been penalised for causing a collision. During the race, Car 3 of Martí collided with the PREMA Racing Car 10, Gabriele Minì, at the exit of Turn 6.
After the race, the Stewards investigated the matter using video evidence and also heard from both drivers and Team Representatives. It was determined that Martí had been at fault for the incident as he had to tried to pass round the outside while his front axle had not been alongside the front axle of Car 10 at the apex, as required by the FIA Driving Standards Guidelines.
As a result, the Stewards ruled that Car 3 did not have a right to remain on the outside and was therefore not entitled to racing room. The Stewards considered the mitigating circumstances, given that the incident occurred on Lap 1 and that their visibility had been impacted as a car had already run wide at the exit. Therefore, Martí has been handed a five-second time penalty, which sees him drop from P14 to P16.
F3:
It was as you were at the start, with pole-sitter del Pino keeping teammate Tramnitz behind, while Mari Boya stayed in third ahead of fellow Campos driver Tsolov in fourth. In fifth, Noel León was coming under threat from PREMA Racing teammate Ugo Ugochukwu, as well Rodin Motorsport rookie Louis Sharp at the end of the opening lap.
Tramnitz made the DRS count at the start of Lap 3 to take the lead from del Pino at the entry of Turn 2. Moments later, Ugochukwu overtook León at the same corner for fifth, but he soon dropped to sixth as Sharp completed a double overtake on both PREMA drivers at the exit of Turn 4. A Virtual Safety Car soon turned into a full Safety Car on Lap 5, as AIX Racing’s Nicola Marinangeli stopped on track at the exit of Tosa with a wheel off his car.
Racing resumed at the start of Lap 9 of 18 and it was a good restart for the MP top two as they built up a 1.8s lead. Boya was struggling through and dropped from P3 to out of the points before another Safety Car came out. The Spaniard retired to the pit lane, while the marshals cleared Matías Zagazeta’s DAMS Lucas Oil car from the gravel at Tamburello, following an incident with Callum Voisin.
The Rodin driver was later handed a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision. Tramnitz once again had a good restart while del Pino held off Tsolov in the battle for second as Sharp kept a watching brief from P4. The DRS was enabled at the start of Lap 14 of 18 and del Pino was using it, not only to pull away from Tsolov, but also to close in on Tramnitz down the Main Straight.
León had a scruffy lap as he ran wide at the exit of Turn 7 in a battle with Tuukka Taponen for seventh, dropping him to P9 behind Noah Stromsted. Roman Bilinski, now in P6, was showing tremendous pace, setting the fastest time of the race on Lap 15, which brought him right onto the back of Ugochukwu. The Rodin driver was not close enough into Turn 2 to make a move, but behind him Stromsted was to take P7 from Taponen at the same corner.
Onto the penultimate lap and Ugochukwu ran wide and into the gravel at the entry to Acqua Minerali, dropping him from fifth to eighth. Tramnitz though had managed the race perfectly and crossed the line to take victory in the Imola Sprint as del Pino made it a first one-two finish in Formula 3 for MP Motorsport.
Tsolov wound up third ahead of the Rodin pairing of Sharp and Bilinski, while Stromsted’s late charge ended with him in P6 ahead of Taponen. Ugochukwu and León were eighth and ninth respectively for PREMA, as MP’s Alessandro Giusti rounded out the top 10.
[The story is as per press release]
