Photos: ART Grand Prix
Drivers with F1 logos on their overalls don’t downplay their chance of racing at the top level, especially if the F2 title is in their sights. But “there is no rule” that either leads to F1, and it can be costly thinking otherwise
In October last year, Formula Scout cast a warning to Formula 2 star Victor Martins that he needed to avoid repeating the path tread by his former team-mate Theo Pourchaire, who had won the F2 title and been racing in Super Formula and IndyCar.
Pourchaire’s aim had been to race in F1 with Sauber, which had backed him all the way from Formula 4, but ultimately made himself unsuitable for that opportunity in part due to the mental fragility shown as that dream kept failing to become reality.
It took three years in F2 with ART Grand Prix to become champion, and while he showed in many ways that he had grown as a driver and began his title-winning 2023 campaign “much more relaxed than last year”, his desire to impress Sauber (then known as Alfa Romeo Racing) with his F1 efforts behind-the-scenes contrasted with remarks that “I’m putting all my efforts to do a good job in F2” and particularly when doing F1 practice sessions could leave him “mentally, physically, really tired”.
“I’m young and I still have the time and I know I will have an [F1 race] opportunity in the future,” the 20-year-old stated confidently in the paddock during the F2 title decider, and while wearing Alfa Romeo overalls as he was on F1 practice duty.
After becoming champion though, Pourchaire could only wonder if his third year in F2 had been a redundant undertaking.
“There is no [rule], it’s not because you are an F2 champion that you will have a place in F1,” he said in disappointment. “I did my best. And the goal that Sauber Academy told me, it was to win the championship, and I did it.”
The expectations on Pourchaire in F2 had been set by his stunning weekend in Monaco as a rookie when he won the Monaco feature race from pole with ART GP and became the series’ youngest ever pole-sitter and victor in the process.
Talking of Victors, it was rookie team-mate Martins who was the fastest F2 driver in 2023 and that set expectations for 2024…
Pourchaire, Ayumu Iwasa & Martins
Martins arrived in F2 aged 21 – while Pourchaire departed aged 20 – and made the podium on debut but was not emotionally prepared for the step up. He said the biggest thing he learned from his first race was to “manage a bit more my emotion”, and like his team-mate that was a case of identifying a weakness and then making false starts in actually eliminating it.
“I got so much experience [from doing] so many years in Formula Renault and then Formula 3. I got a lot of maturity, I know how to manage myself, manage my emotion throughout the race.”
That quote is from two years ago, almost to the day, and thereon Martins dialled down the pace in the name of consistency and more importantly bringing home points. He came fifth in the 2023 standings, claiming three poles but only converting one into a victory. Like Pourchaire he chose to stay at ART GP for his second season, and there was further familiarity in his 2024 environment as it was his sixth year in the Alpine Academy. But F2’s new car provided unknowns that needed exploiting.
Martins also didn’t want to be driving anymore within the limits he had set himself as a rookie, to extract the maximum. But after two rounds in 2024 he was 18th in the standings with zero points, having racked up more crashes and penalties. He was adamant the title was his aim at this point, and believed no change in approach was needed following his bad start.
“I will say for sure, if I’m honest, it’s a big impact [on my title hopes]. But in the end, if I think like that and I try to find excuses or to understand – for sure I want to understand, but if I think too much about Jeddah and Bahrain, it’s not going anywhere,” he admitted to Formula Scout.
So Martins was looking ahead, rather than behind. He didn’t want to carry past mistakes in his mind as he went forward. But when they occurred again, primarily in qualifying, it tested both driver and team’s confidence in their approach.
Soon there were admissions about starting the season with the wrong approach, but accompanied with contrasting lines.
Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
“We don’t need to like reinvent the world, we don’t need to be a magician, and do magical things. It’s just do better things, which are small things: better communication, better trust in ourselves, better serenity in our work.”
He also didn’t have F1 on his mind: “I’m only seeing an opportunity if I succeed, if I do well in F2. And that means it’s down to the work I will do, to the results I will show, and nothing else.”
That proved to be incorrect, since Alpine had multiple management changes and it was new eyes he needed to impress. Martins ended 2024 with a lower championship position and 43 less points than the year before, and without Alpine’s backing.
After Martins exited contention for a 2025 F1 seat with Alpine, his F2 results had begun to improve and he went from 17th to seventh in the standings during the season’s second half. However that once again raised expectations for the year after…
“I don’t feel pressure. If I’m honest, I felt more pressure last year, starting 2024, than now,” he said before this season began, admitting at ART GP “we weren’t knowing what we were doing last year” but “a different approach” now meant they did.
“I certainly maybe reached a point where when you have been three years in the same championship, you have no more pressure because no one is watching you anymore. So I’m just taking this one like this, just trying to enjoy it. It’s my last chance. I accept it. I know it. It’s the reality, and I just need to make the most out of it. And to do this, I just need to be focused on myself, the little details.”
Martins was 0.114 seconds shy of claiming pole for the opening round in Melbourne (although a grid penalty meant he later did for a race that then didn’t go ahead), the 11th time he had qualified on the front row in F2. Upon hearing that, he joked that “I look too old”, but that the result reflected the changed approach which leant more on looking back than forward.
Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
“Where we were last year for the second half of the season, we used that positively during the winter to always like go even more, even further into some analysis. And I think also struggling a bit last year gave us extra motivation and saying to ourselves ‘we need to react, we need to do things we were not doing before’, for example.”
Collison damage ruled Martins out of the sprint race, then in round two at Bahrain he came 0.155s shy of another pole.
“We are back, definitely,” he said, full of pleasure about his car’s pace. “It’s a good spot for good opportunities tomorrow; going ahead with confidence, no pressure.”
With tyre degradation set to be a big factor, Martins notably said he would “use my experience emotionally [and] technically in the car” to maximise results.
But having also said there was a “mindset of you have nothing to lose” and “everything to play”, he dropped from ninth to 14th in the reversed-grid sprint race and finished the feature race – a proper test of tyre management in hot conditions – in fifth. The points earned lifted him to seventh in the standings, where he ended 2024 and below his and ART GP’s targets.
“F2 is really difficult and tough for the engineers to understand every time what’s going on in the car. Also ourselves as drivers, we sometimes do a mistake and we don’t understand where it’s coming from,” Martins said before those two races.
“So definitely a good communication, a good confidence between the two parts, myself and the team [is key], and I think we started to really be good last year from Barcelona where we knew what was wrong. And also on myself on the driving style, what was suiting the car or not,” he explained.
Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
“I’m sure right now if I had the car of last year, I would be much quicker than what I was doing last year with the same car because when it’s going well you just live on the momentum and that’s so, so much. There is so much difference in that also. So I think it’s a combination about everything.
“I’m not going to go into details, but for sure the Victor is not the same and the car is not the same as last year.”
Following another season start that hasn’t gone to plan despite rapid pace, Martins has been asked similar questions to 2024 and delivered similar answers about how relaxed he is about his results and future, but with some key differences. Including the fact his overalls beared the Williams F1 team’s logo for the first time after it signed him as a junior two weeks prior.
Formula Scout wanted Martins to go into details, particularly on the value of emotional experience and whether he could avoid the mental trappings Pourchaire fell into if ART GP proved competitive enough for his season to go to plan on-track.
“[I’m not] actually thinking about the future. For sure also being alone [without Alpine] at the start of the season helped me to kind of put this pressure away and say to myself ‘there is no more’. Let’s say I have no more career in single-seaters after this, I just enjoy as much as possible F2, and I think that’s the right way to go,” he replied.
“To only be in the moment, think about how to warm up your tyres, how to drive in turns one, turn two, turn three, and not further. And I think now I would just try to keep going like this.
“Having the Williams support also is great. For sure, it’s really good for my future and I thank them for that. But for sure I would try to keep going with the same mindset, which is enjoying as much as I do right now. Like my first F2 season, I was just going on the track and pushing 100%, sometimes a bit too much, but let’s say I will do the same [but applying] with the experience and I will use it like emotionally and all the things I know technically in the car to help me achieve the goal, which is to win the title this year and get into F1.”
Photo: Williams Racing
While Pourchaire’s form and feelings seemed to sway depending on how much he felt he had Sauber’s backing, Martins said the period in which he was no longer an F1 junior “was also an extra motivation” to do a third season in F2 with ART GP.
“To keep going, keep fighting, going for it, and showing your full potential every time, every time going on track and also off-track,” he told media including Formula Scout.
“But definitely being part of an F1 team is really good. You have this motivation to go further. You know you will have opportunities if you earn them. And definitely I still think I need to just focus on my F2 season: just delivering, doing what I know how to do. How to drive an F2 car, how to be in front and show them that I hope I will get opportunities in F1.
“I had the opportunity already in Monza driving the [2023 Williams] car. Was a great moment. Definitely being back in an F1 car was great. It’s been almost like a year.”
There’s still contradictions in Martins’ quotes, and he’s of course appreciative to be racing as a Williams junior rather than as a free agent. Even if the team is unlikely to have an F1 seat up for grabs for a long time.
Listening back to his statements from 2024, it’s not what’s being said but how it is that is the big difference in 2025. He is far more relaxed now ART GP has shaken off its qualifying struggles, and by no longer being in the Alpine Academy too.
If he does make his way to the top of the F2 standings, and is there by season-end, it will be interesting to see if a 24-year-old Martins considers that mission complete or if the relief of finally achieving that aim is tinged with regret.