Dürksen Wins, Invicta is Teams’ Champion: What Happened in the Final Formula 2 Feature Race?

The final Formula 2 Feature Race did not lack drama and excitement as diverse strategies played out and several drivers found themselves in contention for the win despite Joshua Dürksen ultimately claiming the final victory of 2025.

(Image Credit to Motorsport Week)

While the spotlight may have been firmly fixed on the action sandwiching this race, Formula 2’s Abu Dhabi Feature Race did a great job in pulling a little bit of that spotlight back.

In what was a chaotic and action-filled final Feature Race of the Formula 2 season, Paraguayan driver Joshua Dürksen would bring home the win for AIX Racing. He would be followed home by Invicta driver Roman Staněk, whose podium would serve to hand his team their second consecutive team championship. Gabriele Minì would complete the race podium with a third-place finish for Prema.

Ahead of the race in the pit lane, Nikola Tsolov was released unsafely, almost hitting Leonardo Fornaroli. As they made it to the grid, Fornaroli took his place in third position behind Jak Crawford and Roman Staněk.

Right on the formation lap, the car of Trident driver Laurens Van Hoepen started smoking, likely due to an engine failure. During this, Jak Crawford received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for an illegal starting procedure.

Staněk executed a start that can only be described as perfect as Dino Beganovic overtook Fornaroli, then went on to claim second place on the very first lap. Crawford was called to the pits to serve his penalty and try to get back from last place, where he ended up after the 10-second stop-and-go. Arvid Lindblad and Oliver Goethe battled fiercely from the beginning, while Joshua Dürksen fought his way up to third place from eighth.

Not long after the start, a terrifying accident took place as Alexander Dunne lost control of his car on a curb, colliding with Victor Martins and stopping in the middle of the track, facing oncoming cars. Cian Sheilds was caught in the action, colliding with Dunnes' stationary car. The three drivers' races were ended in that moment and Dunne received a ten-second time penalty for causing a collision. It was determined that Shields was unable to avoid the clashing cars as he couldn’t see them from his on-track position.

A safety car was brought out because of this incident.

The early laps of the race would see Campos Racing and Racing Bulls-bound driver Arvid Lindblad locked in battle with Gabriele Minì and Sebastián Montoya. Minì avoided much of the chaos, but Montoya wasn’t as lucky; despite avoiding major car damage, he was very close to doing so.

Going into the race, second-place Hitech were down thirty points to Invicta in the team standings, thus requiring something close to a miracle in order to claim the title. To have a window at the title, they would have to ensure that Invicta’s two drivers failed to score thirteen points total or greater.

Third-place Campos Racing also came into the final Feature Race with a decent shout at the title, however they were forty points down at the time of asking and would’ve required something close to complete carnage to even have a shot.

But it was all-Invicta from the get-go. Not only did Roman Staněk secure pole position heading into the race, but he even got a good restart to maintain the lead after an early safety car brought out by the aforementioned Martins-Dunne-Shields crash. However, the other leaders, which included Dürksen and Hitech driver Dino Beganovic, remained in close contention; the former followed Staněk into the pit lane in the hopes of a non-racing overtake to grant a vital edge on Invicta. Staněk would gain the advantage out of the pitlane, however Beganovic would eventually get past the Invicta driver on cold tyres.

The pitstop drama would grant Joshua Dürksen the lead of the race and a very healthy margin before his own pitstop.

Enter the safety car.

Montoya would find himself stopped at lap 10 with a mechanical issue, which would eventually bring out a safety car (and crane service for Montoya’s car) after an initial virtual safety car designation (as of this writing, it is unknown what caused the issue).

While Italian driver and this year's F2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli was able to claim the lead of the race, a botched restart would see him run wide off the track with others like Arvid Lindblad slowly regaining.

The big problem for those drivers? They didn’t pit yet.

Bookmark this for later.

Meanwhile, to take an optimistic day for Hitech to a bad one, Hitech drivers Luke Browning and Dino Beganovic were both handed five-second penalties for speeding in the pit lane. The penalty would also hurt in the latter’s push for the win, as he was battling Roman Staněk and Joshua Dürksen for what would become the race lead.

Up ahead, it would be Arvid Lindblad and Leonardo Fornaroli battling for positioning; despite being faster, Lindblad was unable to find an opportunity to properly establish a lead of any kind. Not only did that hurt both their medium tyres, but it also dragged American driver Jak Crawford into the battle and allowed for him to eventually get past Fornaroli after Lindblad did so a little earlier on.

The battle wouldn’t matter all that much in terms of the lead later on, as all would pit in the race’s later stages after trying to stay out as long as possible. That would push the likes of Roman Staněk, alongside Gabriele Minì, all the way up the order. At that point, Joshua Dürksen got past the likes of Beganovic and into the lead; the Hitech driver would find himself in fourth as his five-second penalty would put him behind Gabriele Minì, who was able to get within five seconds before the chequered flag.

Despite Joshua Dürksen’s victory, Roman Stanek’s second-place finish would end up being more than enough to ensure that Invicta would retain the Teams Championship heading into the off-season.

Article written by Gréta Szabó and Noah Guttman