The 2025 Formula 2 Champion and new McLaren junior Leonardo Fornaroli closed out his final qualifying session in the series with a composed third-place finish.
This result marks the end of a standout season for the Italian driver, who arrived in Abu Dhabi already confirmed as the 2025 F2 champion, which culminated in being hired by the Woking-based squad to its Driver Development Programme.
Formaroli is eager to close out this chapter of his motorsports career on a high, having taken back-to-back feeder series championships with his F3 triumph last year.
Despite the result, the champion explained that his path to P3 was not without challenge. A difficult free practice forced Fornaroli to improve to have any chance of a fight at the front.
“I’m quite happy. It was a decent session,” Fornaroli told media, including Motorsport Week.
“In free practice, I struggled a little bit more than usual, but I was confident going for qualifying.”
A strong first run settled any nerves, immediately placing him in contention. But a late decision to adjust the setup ahead of the second run left Invicta out of sequence with the rest of the grid. Surrounding Fornaroli with traffic and compromising his tyre warm-up.
“We wanted to change something on the setup for set two, but we waited a little bit too much and we were off-sync with every driver,” he explained.
Despite the disruption, he pushed through. His final lap featured a small mistake in Turn 5, costing him the chance to challenge pole, yet he still managed to lock in P3.
“My final push wasn’t super clean. I made a little mistake in T5 which compromised the lap time, but anyway, still P3. Happy with the result.”
Fornaroli without pressure in Abu Dhabi
Throughout the season, Fornaroli entered each weekend with pressure on his shoulders. As the 2024 Formula 3 World Champion, filling the 2024 F2 champion’s shoes, the Italian was under a microscope. However, securing the title with a round to spare has naturally reduced some of the stresses in 2024.
Despite securing the coveted title, Fornaroli emphasised that he wasn’t coming to Abu Dhabi for a victory lap. The Italian remains competitive, to help secure Invicta the Constructors’ Championship.
“For sure, yes,” Fornaroli mentioned when asked on the lack of pressure this weekend.
“A bit less pressure today but still I’m very focused because I want to do a good weekend and the championship with a good weekend.”
With Roman Staněk on pole and Fornaroli starting third, Invicta are positioned strongly in the fight for the Team Championship, where every point will count.
“It’s a nice starting point for the weekend,” Fornaroli explained.
“We have a little bit of a gap compared to the team that is in P2, but still, we don’t have to relax because the races are unpredictable and everything can happen.
Roman and I, I’m sure, will give everything in the races.”
A year of lessons in Fornaroli in F2
However, as the season comes to a close in Abu Dhabi, Fornaroli took a moment to reflect on his season thus far. In particular, the Italian remained particularly proud of his qualifying performances across the season. Since the season opener in Melbourne, Fornaroli has never started outside of the top 10. The 21-year-old proved once more that consistency is key in winning major motorsport titles.
“It has been a very good year,” Fornaroli explained.
“I really enjoyed this last qualifying in F2 with a little bit less pressure. I tried to enjoy it even more.
Yeah, as I said, all the qualifying has been very good. We were in the top 10 every single qualifying, so since Melbourne, we showed a very strong pace in qualifying.
I learned a lot through all the rounds. Also, Invicta helped me a lot. I learned also from Roman a lot. So yeah, I really enjoyed this year.”
The sentiment of this season was not lost on the rookie, however. When asked to describe his season so far in one sentence, Fornaroli struggled to find the words.
“One sentence only?” Fornaroli questioned.
“Yeah. It’s, I mean, there are a lot of sentences that can sum up the season. Emotional, super, incredible. I mean, lots of things happened, but it has been an amazing year.”
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