Abu Dhabi – Qualifying: Stanek takes the final pole of the season, Martins in the top 10

As a symbol of another successful season for the British, it is indeed a car sporting the Invicta colors, which managed to climb to the top of the final qualifying round of the season. In Abu Dhabi, Roman Stanek outpaced the pack of F2 thanks to a time of 1:36.836. By 0,093 seconds, the Czech finished ahead of American Jak Crawford, who achieved the feat of moving fromAston Martin F1 to the F2 car provided by DAMS in just a few minutes, without any major performance loss. This success could not be replicated by the other rookies present in Free Practice 1 earlier in the day, however. Arvid Lindblad finished tenth, Luke Browning was 17th, while Cian Shields found himself stuck in 21st position.

Launching into an attacking lap close to the limit and well past the time limit, Leonardo Fornaroli, the reigning champion from last week at Losail, couldn't match his teammate's performance. Already outpaced in qualifying in Hungary, the Italian missed the benchmark time by nearly a tenth and a half, but is ideally positioned for the feature race. Indeed, one of the final stakes of this F2 season remains the battle for the team title. While Invicta holds a comfortable lead over Hitech (296 points to 261), the presence of both yellow cars in the top three should be reassuring. Although Dino Beganovic confirmed his form and managed to secure fourth place for Hitech, Luke Browning's poor performance could prove costly for the silver cars.

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No back-to-back wins for Martins?

Finally, Victor Martins failed to secure a starting position that would – in theory – allow him to build on his Losail victory. Having secured his first win on Qatari soil, the Frenchman is now preparing to end his F2 career, marked by just one victory per season. Starting seventh on the grid, the ART Grand Prix driver was unable to close the gap to the leaders, despite completing twelve laps in the session.

Finally, it's worth noting the various performances of the drivers who didn't complete the entire Formula 2 season. Already strong in Qatar, Nikola Tsolov confirmed his form with Campos, finishing ninth and again ahead of Arvid Lindblad, just like last week. Martinius Stenshorne, despite being fast in F3, finished in 18th place, while Laurens van Hoepen and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak remained at the back of the pack in 19th and 22nd places.

Regarding the rest of this UAE weekend, the sprint race will take place at 13 p.m. (French time) on Saturday, while the main race is scheduled for 10 a.m. (French time) on Sunday morning. This will conclude the Formula 2 season.

F2 – Abu Dhabi (Yas Marina)
The qualification ranking