Crawford tops free practice for final F2 round in Abu Dhabi

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

DAMS’ Jak Crawford set the fastest time in free practice for Formula 2’s final round of 2025 at Yas Marina Circuit.

The Texan set his best time in the final seconds of the morning’s 45-minute session to pip Prema’s Gabriele Mini by 0.085 seconds. Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad was third fastest, a further 0.011s back from Mini.

After a couple of installation laps to scrub in Pirelli’s medium compound tyres, the field was soon back in the pits with the exception of Rodin Motorsport’s Martinius Stenshorne. However, his attempt to lay a time down early was thwarted by traffic as he encountered drivers exiting the pits as he started his flying lap.

Instead, it was Hitech GP’s Dino Beganovic who set the first representative laptime, although Prema’s Sebastian Montoya and then AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen immediately jumped to the top of the times.

Mini was back in front next time around, before being demoted by Montoya and MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe. However, as the session moved into its final 20 minutes, Mini again went fastest with a 1m39.866s on his eighth lap.

Turn two was proving tricky, with both Montoya and DAMS’ Kush Maini having wild moments but managing to catch their slides and press on with their laps.

The Prema pair were first to pit, as Mini’s benchmark remained unchallenged, with most of the rmaining runners following them in a lap later. The Invicta Racing duo of Roman Stanek and new champion Leonardo Fornaroli enjoyed an almost clear track but struggled to maintain pace for the full tour, with the latter only able to move up to sixth.

With under eight minutes remaining, Lindblad briefly moved top the top but his 1m39.790s laptimes was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn one, dropping back to eighth.

Mini improved again to 1m39.630s, which was briefly beaten by Crawford only for his time also to be struck from the timesheet for running outside of turn one’s track limits.

There were few legitimate improvements in the final minutes, but Lindblad later managed to keep his car within the white lines to go second with a 1m39.641s, then Crawford timed his final run to perfection to grab first place as the chequered flag came out.

Duerksen ended up fourth ahead of Goethe and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins, another with a late improvement. Half a second split the top eight, and a full second covered all but the four slowest drivers.

Free practice results