F2: Stanek impresses to take pole ahead of Crawford and Fornaroli

Roman Stanek was in flying form at the Yas Marina Circuit, putting in a fine performance to beat Jak Crawford and Invicta Racing team mate Leonardo Fornaroli to pole position.

The Czech driver’s 1m 36.836s was good enough to beat Crawford, who was fresh from his FP1 outing with Aston Martin, by just 0.087s.

2025 Champion, and recently announced member of the McLaren Driver Development Programme, Fornaroli had looked on course to beat Stanek on his final lap, but lost time in the last two sectors, before settling for third.

Hitech TGR driver, and Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy prospect, Dino Beganovic was fourth, ahead of PREMA Racing’s Sebastian Montoya.

MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe recovered from losing his fastest time for exceeding track limits, to go up to sixth late on, ahead of ART Grand Prix driver Victor Martins.

AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen wound up in eighth, in front of the Campos Racing pairing of Nikola Tsolov and Arvid Lindblad, who rounded out the top 10.

This means the 2026 Racing Bulls driver, Lindblad, is set to line up on reverse grid pole in his final Formula 2 Sprint Race, with lights out scheduled for 1615 local time on Saturday afternoon.

Before that gets underway, you can read a full report on the FIA Formula 2 website here.