AIX Racing’s Joshua Dürksen won the first Sprint Race of the new Formula 2 season in Melbourne after a chaotic race occurred at the Australian Albert Park circuit.
The Paraguayan led home Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli and Hitech’s Luke Browning in a race impacted by several incidents.
Two safety cars were brought out after both Trident drivers, Max Esterson and Sami Meguetounif, crashed out.
Jak Crawford and Victor Martins also retired in a less than positive maiden outing in 2025 for the duo.
Durksen begins his F2 season, as he finished his last season having back-to-back race wins across two campaigns.
Reigning Formula 3 World Champion Fornaroli started the Sprint race on pole, and Dürksen joined him on the front row – Hitech’s Browning started from third on the grid.
Gabriele Mini initially took pole in qualifying but obtained a three-place penalty for the Sprint and Feature race for impeding Crawford, relegating him to 13th on the Sprint grid.
At lights out Fornaroli was slow off the marks with Dürksen leading into Turn 1, Martins went wide at Turn 1 but rejoined.
Alpine academy driver Kush Maini dropped down the order on the first lap, after going wide at Turn 10.
Martins retired in his ART Grand Prix machine on Lap 2 as he lost the rear of the car into Turn 5 and tumbled into the barriers and the VSC was called out.
Crawford’s retirement came on Lap 4 as two of last year’s front runners suffered DNFs.
Dino Beganovic pulled off a great move going into Turn 11 around the outside of Roman Stanek to gain temporary fifth place.
Esterson in the Trident car caused the first Safety Car of the race, as he lost the rear on entry to Turn 6, beaching himself in the gravel.
The race was back underway with green flag race conditions on Lap 11, with Dürksen having a good getaway from Fornaroli.
Beganovic had a huge spin at Turn 9, luckily avoiding oncoming cars, the Hitech driver got the car back going but dropped down to 15th place.
The second Trident of Meguetounif had a similar spin to Beganovic at Turn 9 and 10, but couldn’t catch the car and hit the barriers in the gravel, bringing out a second Safety Car of the Sprint race on Lap 15.
Dürksen had gained a two-second lead, which was eradicated.
The Paraguayan performed another solid restart getting away from Invicta’s Fornaroli, building up a one second gap, breaking the DRS train.
Mini got the fastest lap on Lap 21, chasing his Prema teammate Sebastian Montoya in sixth but to no avail.
Alexandre Dunne showed good pace throughout as he passed Arvid Lindblad and got into the ninth position, an amazing recovery from 16th on the grid.
Dürksen cruised home in the final few laps to top off a great drive from the Paraguayan as the two rookies behind him, Fornaroli and Browning, claimed their maiden F2 podiums.
MP’s Richard Verschoor was pressurising Browning but couldn’t get past him and had to settle for fourth with Fornaroli’s Invicta team-mate Roman Stanek rounding out the top five.
Montoya and Gabriele Mini finished sixth and seventh respectively as Red Bull junior Pepe Marti got the final point up for grabs, finishing in eighth place.
Dunne and Lindblad rounded out the top-10.
READ MORE – Victor Martins inherits F2 pole position following Gabriele Mini penalty
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