Prema’s Gabriele Mini claims pole for F2’s Melbourne season opener

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Prema’s Gabriele Mini topped the first qualifying session of the 2025 Formula 2 season in Melbourne, beating ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins to pole position.

Both Mini and Martins were fast throughout, as well as DAMS’ Jak Crawford who ended the session in third.

Reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Leonardo Fornaroli, who topped the charts after runs on the first sets of tyres, was 10th fastest and therefore took the reversed-grid pole for the sprint race.

AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen was the first driver to complete a competitive flying lap, setting a 1m31.482s. However, he was immediately bettered by Martins by almost half a second.

Meanwhile, Trident’s Max Esterson hit the rear of MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe at turn 13 at low speed, spinning his competitor round. No penalties were issued, but Esterson pitted without having set a flying lap and did not rejoin, while Goethe only headed out again with 10 minutes to go and qualified down in 19th.

The supersoft tyre compound was good for two flying laps, and Martins lowered his benchmark by a second to enter the 1m30s. Crawford still had room for improvement too, and set a 1m30.184s.

Mini then went fastest by 0.006 seconds over Crawford, before Invicta Racing’s Fornaroli beat them both.

Fornaroli still had life in his tyres for a third flying lap, and he broke into the 1m29s by 0.052 seconds.

Trident’s Sami Meguetounif ran on his own as everyone else pitted for new tyres, but his laptimes were not competitive enough to squeeze into the top 10.

Hitech GP’s Luke Browning moved up to fourth place on his first lap with his second set of tyres, having gone fastest in sector one.

DAMS’ Kush Maini momentarily brought the yellow flags out after spinning at the exit of turn 13, but he quickly rejoined the racing line safely.

Martins and Crawford were next to improve, and doing so by almost a second, with the veteran Martins then gaining another tenth of a second in his last timed lap.

That would not be enough to claim pole, as Mini was still improving and set a 1m29.286s to take top spot by 0.114s.

MP’s Richard Verschoor was 0.364s behind in fourth, followed by Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne. Both Dunne and Crawford will have to serve 10-place grid penalties in both races.

Fornaroli was unable to improve his pace on his second set of tyres. He tried until the end, but ran wide and spun out of turn 12.

Qualifying results