Martins claims second F2 pole of 2025 at Silverstone

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins secured his second pole of the season by a narrow margin ahead of Alex Dunne in Formula 2 qualifying at Silverstone.

DAMS’s Jak Crawford set the early pace in the 30-minute session by posting an opening effort of 1m41.279s to lead Prema’s Sebastian Montoya.

Hitech GP’s Luke Browning momentarily took over at the top on hom soil, but his 1m41.108s lap was deleted for exceeding track limits. Joshua Duerksen, Gabriele Mini and Dino Beganovic also lost their lap times for the same offence.

The yellow flags briefly were briefly displayed when Trident’s Max Esterson at Club, though the American was able to continue.

Free practice pacestter Martins soon led with 1m40.710s, his time set just before the session was red-flagged due to Rodin Motorsport’s Amaury Cordeel spinning to a halt at Club.

After a short stoppage, running resumed with 18 minutes left on the clock. Title contender Alex Dunne was the first to set a flying lap, placing his Rodin machine third.

Meanwhile, ART’s Ritomo Miyata was out of qualifying with a mechanical issue, his car left stranded in the pitlane. His team-mate Martins was soon displaced at the top by Crawford, who lowered the pace by more than 0.7s with a 1m39.971s.

Montoya reduced Crawford’s advantage and claimed second, while MP Motorsport’s championship leader Richard Verschoor took third, having looked on course to grab provisional pole before making an error in the final sector.

AIX Racing’s Duerksen briefly climbed to fourth before Invicta Racing’s Roman Stanek took second away from Montoya with a lap 0.1s shy of Crawford’s benchmark. Stanek’s team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli could only manage 10th, though he denied Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad reverse-grid pole for Saturday’s sprint race.

Martins, meanwhile, reclaimed his place at the top of leaderboard with four minutes remaining, his 1m39.731s lap putting him 0.2s clear of Crawford. It was enough to secure pole for Sunday’s feature race.

Dunne missed out on pole by 0.065s with a late effort, though he took second away from Crawford. Stanek equalled his best qualifying result of the season with fourth, and Montoya rounded out the top five.

Duerksen was sixth ahead of Verschoor, Hitech’s Beganovic and Invicta’s Kush Maini, while Browning is set to start both of the weekend’s races from 12th.

Qualifying results