Leonardo Fornaroli passes teammate Roman Stanek to FIA F2 feature win in Hungary, as Rafael Camara secures F3 race and title win.
F2:
A rolling start kicked things off as pole-sitter Stanek led his teammate Fornaroli and Crawford away, as the top 12 drivers maintain position on the first lap with the track slightly wet off-line. Crawford had lost ground to the top two and on Lap 4 was coming under pressure from Luke Browning. The Hitech TGR driver looked to have taken the place, but he ran wide at Turn 2 allowing his rival back through.
Lap 6 of 37 and Amaury Cordeel pulled his Rodin Motorsport car over to the side of the road, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car. Racing resumed on Lap 8, and Arvid Lindblad, the lead driver on the Medium tyre, took two places at the opening two corners from Oliver Goethe and Joshua Duerksen to go to P5. Lindblad’s Campos Racing teammate Josep María Martí lost two places to Gabriele Minì and Richard Verschoor at Turn 1 though, dropping the Spaniard to P11.
The Virtual Safety Car was signalled once again with Victor Martins stopping his ART Grand Prix on track at the exit of Turn 12. Green flag conditions returned on Lap 11, and looking to get the jump on Lindblad, Goethe ran wide at Turn 12, dropping him to P8 behind Duerksen and Alexander Dunne.
Dunne and Duerksen then went wheel-to-wheel down the Main Straight, with the Irishman taking sixth from the AIX Racing driver, despite a lockup into Turn 2. Campos then informed Lindblad that the Prime tyre was quicker than the Options on Lap 13, and his teammate Martí showed that as he took back the two places he lost to Verschoor and Minì on the run to Turn 2. The Spaniard then overtook Goethe for P8 on the run to Turn 12.
The first set of Soft tyre runners at the front then pitted, with Browning coming in from fourth, with Duerksen, Goethe and Minì all joining him in swapping to the Mediums. Race leader Stanek and Crawford came in on Lap 15, with Fornaroli and Dunne following on the next lap. The Italian made the overcut work as he came back out ahead of his teammate.
Out in front, and yet to pit on the Medium tyres, Lindblad led Martí, with Verschoor in third, ahead of Dino Beganovic, Kush Maini, Cian Shields and Ritomo Miyata. Fornaroli was in eighth, but only one second separated him and Stanek, who closed the gap on Lap 19. The Championship leader’s race then got more difficult when he was given a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pitlane.
Back at the front, Verschoor was the first of the alternative strategy runners to be called in on Lap 22, and he came back out just behind Goethe in P12. Lindblad was in from the lead on Lap 23, with Martí in on the next lap, but both struggling to get their tyres up to temperature. They lost out to Verschoor, who had gotten up to P7. The Briton was now 10th, while his teammate fell through the field to P15.
On to Lap 27 of 37, Crawford closed to within 0.4s off Stanek. The American made a move at Turn 1 on the next lap, but locked up into the corner, allowing his rival to keep the position. Their battling allowed Fornaroli to escape up the road and by Lap 29, he was 4.9s clear. Crawford was struggling behind Stanek now, and behind them Browning set a personal best time on Lap 33 to close to within 1.6s.
The fight for seventh then heated up as Beganovic pilled the pressure on Lindblad. The two went side-by-side through Turns 1 and 2 on Lap 34 and 35, as Goethe and Dunne started to join the fight. Miyata finally pitted on the penultimate lap, promoting Stanek to second and Crawford to third.
Onto the last lap, Fornaroli was 7.2s clear out in front across the line to achieve his third win in as many weekends and his first FIA Formula 2 victory. Stanek made it an Invicta one-two, with Crawford third, Browning fourth, Verschoor fifth, while Lindblad held of Beganovic to take P6. Goethe also fought off Dunne for P8 as Martí fought through to take the final point in P10.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1951932607186215387
F3:
The race got underway with a rolling start and Câmara retained the lead comfortably from pole ahead of Boya and Taponen in second and third places. Tim Tramnitz’s slender hopes of remaining in title contention took a blow early on as he spun at Turn 7 to fall down the order having started P16.
Ugo Ugochukwu was making quick progress having gone from seventh on the grid, and he claimed P5 on Lap 2 with a pass around the outside of Théophile Nael at the second corner. While the conditions remained damp, DRS was enabled on Lap 3 and Boya remained within a second of the race leader and his title rival, as the top two began to pull away from the rest of the pack.
The Campos driver piled the pressure on with the fastest lap of the race, and he attempted a move into Turn 2 but couldn’t’ find the traction to make it stick. The Safety Car was deployed on Lap 4 with AIX Racing driver Brad Benavides in the tyre wall at the exit of Turn 13 following contact with Rodin Motorsport’s Roman Bilinski.
Racing got back underway entering Lap 7, and Câmara retained the advantage out in front while teammate Charlie Wurz moved himself up to P6 at Turn 1 with a pass on Nael. Ugochukwu looked set to complete an overtake on Gerrard Xie for P4 at Turn 5 but was tagged into a spin by the Hitech TGR driver. It brought out the Safety Car once again with both suffering race-ending damage and stopping on track.
The Safety Car was in at the end of Lap 10, and once again Câmara got a clean restart to head the field. Nikola Tsolov was on a charge, going from P13 to P10 on the first racing lap back to green. He got the switchback out of Turn 1 on Noah Stromsted to improve to P9 on Lap 12, and then passed James Wharton to take eighth position.
The Australian then slipped back to 10th on Lap 13, as a wide moment at Turn 13 allowed teammate Laurens van Hoepen by. Up ahead, Tsolov was on the move once again and he improved to P7 into Turn 1 with a pass on Alessandro Giusti. Before the end of the lap, he passed Brando Badoer at Turn 14 to secure P6.
The Bulgarian closed the gap down to Nael ahead and by Lap 20, he was within a second of the Van Amersfoort Racing driver in the fight for P5. They soon caught up to the podium battle as they joined Wurz in harrying Taponen for third position, as the clock ticked into two minutes remaining of the Feature Race following the earlier Safety Car periods.
In front of them though, nobody could prevent Câmara taking a crowning victory and the 2025 Drivers’ Championship with it. Boya finished second while Taponen held onto third place ahead of Wurz, Nael and a charging Tsolov. Badoer was P7 for PREMA Racing followed by van Hoepen in eighth, Giusti in P9 and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak 10th for Campos.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1951906538181783978
Here’s how sprint F2, F3 race panned out in Hungary
[The story is as per press release]