The F2 sprint race at the 2025 Imola GP saw Crawford secure his first win of the season. Lindblad finished in second place, with Browning completing the top three.
After an eventful qualifying on Friday, the F2 drivers competed in the first European sprint race of the season. The reverse grid saw Miyata start on pole with Crawford right behind.
Chaotic Start
The lead of the race was quickly taken away by Crawford at turn two. Goethe went wide pretty early and dramatically lost nine places. In parallel, Mini and Marti had contact in the back, which resulted in Maini going wide.
Shortly after, Meguetounif was forced to go through the pits after some contact due to heavy traffic. Elsewhere, some heavy contact between Dunne and Marti impacted the Campos driver negatively.
After two intense laps, Lindblad succeeded in taking third position. All the while, Browning and Martins were actively fighting for fourth place.
Laps 9-13
Browning set the fastest lap while Beganovic stayed stuck behind Durksen for multiple laps and kept pushing aggressively. Goethe, after a bad start, was still at this point struggling to regain places after being stuck in twelfth position. Lindblad was still hunting Miyata for second place and got closer.
Lindblad succeeded in reaching second place on lap 12 in the second turn. A dramatic side-by-side for Goethe and Maini resulted in the Red Bull junior driver passing by in remarkable fashion. Montoya then tried to take advantage to pass Maini, but the gap was still too big for him to successfully execute this.
In front, Crawford was 2.155 seconds ahead and kept flying away.
Laps 14-19
Browning eventually succeeded in passing Miyata and secured second place. Right behind was Martins, who tried to take advantage of this situation but was a little too far behind.
Beganovic, who was still stuck behind Durksen, went too wide and ended up in the gravel, which allowed Stanek to pass and secure tenth place.
At turn 15, Martins passed Miyata, and Dunne was starting to aggressively push behind this duo.
At turn 17, Stanek achieved what Beganovic couldn’t and passed Durksen to put himself in eighth position, right behind his teammate. It was then that Goethe put pressure on Beganovic and passed easily.
Miyata was afterwards in danger of falling to sixth position with his front tires struggling. Dunne therefore passed easily with the help of the DRS.
Browning, who was in third position, kept his fastest lap as it stands. And in front of him, Lindblad was told to keep pushing with Crawford 2.291 seconds ahead.
Lap 20-25
An intense fight between the two Invicta drivers made them lose some time, and Durksen got very close to the pair of them. Simultaneously, Cordell went wide at turn four and caused a yellow flag. He, however, managed to get going again, and the green flag came back out quickly to signal the all clear.
Crawford was by that point only 1.580 seconds ahead. On lap 23, Verschoor had to retire his car while Martins and Dunne were closing in on Browning for the last step of the podium.
During the final lap, many drivers struggled due to their tires, but Lindblad was only 1.3s behind. Due to time running out, Crawford saw the checkered flag first. The result made the sprint race DAMS Lucas Oil’s first 2025 win.
Dunne stays behind Martins only by 0.2s, and Browning keeps third place. Starting on pole, Miyata finished the sprint race down in sixth.
The official points scorers of the 2025 Imola GP sprint race goes as follows :
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Formula 2 will be back tomorrow at 10:00 am local time for the fourth feature race of the season.
Featured image credit: DAMS Lucas Oil
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