Fornaroli seals f2 title as martins wins in qatar

Finlay McSporran
Published: 15:03 30th November 2025

The Italian joins the likes of Bortoleto, Piastri, Russel and Leclerc, as a back to back F3 and F2 champion.

Race Report

Fornaroli came into this race with a 21 point advantage over Jak Crawford who lined up 15th for the feature race.

That gave him a lot of work to do with his rival Fornaroli starting from pole position.

Fornaroli’s race didn’t exactly get off to a perfect start however, as he was jumped by Victor Martins.

After taking the lead, Martins checked out in front, leaving Fornaroli in a lonely second place, which was still enough for him to secure the title.

^{Qatar is the penultimate round of the championship}

On lap six the pit window opened for the soft tyre runners which included the race leaders.

Fornaroli and Alex Dunne came in straight away, with Martins in a lap later.

The French driver maintained the gap over Fornaroli and Dunne who were the leading drivers on the traditional strategy.

Out in front, Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic was the leading driver on the alternative strategy, and was setting some rapid sectors on his ageing hard tyres.

The Swedish driver still had a long way to go however, and on lap 15 the safety car was deployed after Oliver Goethe came to a stop.

That gave the alternative strategy runners a bit of a dilemma, as there was still half the race to go, but pitting now would be too early for the soft tyres.

Staying out wasn’t a great option either, as the safety car bunched the pack up, meaning that the drivers who had pitted earlier had now caught back up to them.

^{A long pit lane in Qatar resulted in a lot of time being lost in a pit stop}

Only four drivers, including Beganovic, stayed out, as the racing resumed on lap 17 of 32.

Despite the setback, Beganovic continued to set fastest laps out in front, and eventually pitted on lap 27.

He emerged back onto the track in P12, but would have been much higher if it weren’t for the safety car.

With all the drivers now having made their mandatory stop, Victor Martins resumed the lead of the race from Fornaroli, who was just a few laps away from becoming F2 champion.

None of his rivals were close enough to do anything about it, as Crawford was still out of the points in 12th, Browning 10th, Verschoor 7th, and Alex Dunne third with a five-second penalty looming over him.

Martins won the race in the end, with Fornaroli coming home in second to secure the championship, and Dunne third despite his penalty.

Results

Fornaroli’s second place secured him the title with a round to spare, winning the Formula 2 championship in his first season, after doing the same in Formula 3 last year. Despite all that however, the Italian still remains without a seat for next year, and hasn’t even been linked with a F1 team.

His podium today also helped his team, Invicta Racing, extend their lead over Hitech TGR to 35 points in the teams championship.

The winner of that title will be decided next week in the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Victor Martins	ART Grand Prix	55m18.455s
2	Leonardo Fornaroli	Invicta Racing	+1.265s
3	Alex Dunne	Rodin Motorsport	+7.439s
4	Arvid Lindblad	Campos Racing	+8.703s
5	Sebastian Montoya	Prema	+10.105s
6	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	+12.362s
7	Nikola Tsolov	Campos Racing	+15.959s
8	Roman Stanek	Invicta Racing	+17.979s
9	Dino Beganovic	Hitech GP	+18.487s
10	Luke Browning	Hitech GP	+23.535s
11	Jak Crawford	DAMS	+28.151s
12	Rafael Villagomez	Van Amersfoort Racing	+32.691s
13	Gabriele Mini	Prema	+33.196s
14	Joshua Duerksen	AIX Racing	+35.889s
15	Martinius Stenshorne	Rodin Motorsport	+37.092s
16	Kush Maini	DAMS	+37.748s
17	John Bennett	Van Amersfoort Racing	+41.585s
18	Laurens van Hoepen	Trident	+42.714s
19	James Wharton	Trident	+54.320s
20	Cian Shields	AIX Racing	1m37.336s
Ret	Oliver Goethe	MP Motorsport
Ret	Ritomo Miyata	ART Grand Prix