Duerksen starts 2025 F2 season with sprint race victory in Melbourne

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Joshua Duerksen started the Formula 2 season on a high with victory in the season-opening sprint race in Melbourne.

The AIX Racing driver managed two safety car restarts on his way to the chequered flag and finished more than two seconds ahead of Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli in second place.

Duerksen took the race lead off the line, beating reversed-grid pole-sitter Fornaroli to the first corner. He managed to pull out a gap of almost a second in the opening laps, before a virtual safety car period halted his progress.

When the track turned green again, he broke out of DRS range, and ran untroubled at the front of the field before the first safety car period. Racing resumed on lap 11 following that, and Duerksen made a good restart. Fornaroli could not stick with him, but managed to pull away from Hitech GP’s Luke Browning behind. 

The order at the front of the field had settled when the safety car was summoned again on lap 14 of 23 and it bunched the group back together. But the restart was a repeat of what had happened earlier, as Duerksen pulled away from Fornaroli and was untroubled thereon. 

Behind, Browning kept the pressure on Fornaroli, but was never close enough to make a move. The two were separated by 0.681 seconds at the chequered flag.

Elsewhere, the drama had started immediately. Feature race poleman Victor Martins was shuffled backwards on lap one, and the ART Grand Prix driver was fighting in the midfield when he lost control of the rear of his car at turn five. He made heavy contact with the wall and could not get going again, prompting the VSC period.

The first actual safety car interruption of the season was caused by Trident’s Max Esterson. He was trying to recover after a crash in qualifying left him last on the grid but had not made much progress when he spun into the gravel and out of the race. 

There were more spins later on when two drivers ran into problems at the same point of the track. Hitech’s Dino Beganovic had been running in the top six when he went around at turn nine while on the racing line. He managed to catch the car, and the drivers running close behind avoided his sideways machine.

Moments later, Trident’s Sami Megatounif had a similar incident, spinning under pressure. His car ended up in the gravel and so the safety car was needed for him to be cleared.

Five racing laps remained following the second safety car period, and the main battle in the points was between Prema’s Gabriele Mini and Sebastian Montoya, running seventh and sixth respectively. Mini kept the pressure on Montoya, but was unable to find a way past. Montoya finished just 0.266s ahead, with the pair close behind MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor and Invicta’s Roman Stanek.

Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti took eighth ahead of debutants Alex Dunne (Rodin Motorsport and Arvid Lindblad (Campos).

Race results (23 laps)