Formula 2 Report: Lindblad fights back for statement win in Spain

Following a messy Sprint Race in which he clashed with Richard Verschoor, pitching him into a spin, the young British-Swede clinched maximum points on Sunday. Front row starters Leonardo Fornaroli and Joshua Durksen may have been caught out at the start of the Sprint, but Lindblad charged off the line in the Feature Race and built a commanding lead.

Apart from a brief encounter with backmarkers in the pit stop phase, he never looked in danger of losing the lead and stormed to what turned into a comfortable victory.

Arguably, given Yuki Tsunoda’s recent struggles at Red Bull, the youngster’s win couldn’t have come at a better time. In fact, victory has fired him up to third in the F2 standings. But after the race, Lindblad reiterated that he’s focused on maintaining positive momentum.

Lindblad said: “I’d like to believe we’re going to challenge and hopefully win the Feature Race [in Austria] as well.

“But that’s everyone’s goal. So we’ll see. Since Jeddah, I’ve made a good step forward, and I think the whole of this triple header, we’ve been really competitive. In Imola, we were fighting for the win in the Feature Race, and in Monaco as well, we were right in the game, so I feel the last couple of rounds we’ve been there.

“We’ll keep doing what we’re doing, focusing on the basics and doing everything in our control right, and we’ll see where we end up. I have full faith in the team; they’ve given me a really strong package in the last couple of race weekends, so I’m sure we’ll be right at the sharp end in the next couple of races.”

Then-championship leader Luke Browning stunned Fornaroli and Durksen with a brilliant double overtake on the run down to turn one and seized the lead at the start of Saturday's Sprint.

As Durksen dropped down the field, eventually retiring from P7, Verschoor also had a shocking start, slipping from P5 to ninth. Ritomo Miyata fared better, launching a double overtake of his own on Lindblad and Roman Stanek for sixth place early on.

It’s this sequence that brought Verschoor and Lindblad together. As the former went down the inside into the first corner, the latter tried desperately to defend, leading to a clash of wheels that sent him spinning across the chicane. A learning moment for the 17-year-old, one that he quickly recovered from, but not his finest hour.

As it turned out, Gabriele Mini and Sebastian Montoya would both spin shortly afterwards, bringing out the safety car and changing the race. Verschoor, alongside Alex Dunne and Rafael Villagomez, pitted for fresh soft tires and streaked to the front from the back of the pack, between them claiming a slightly surreal opportunistic top three.

Verschoor said: “I’ve been in F2 for a while, but this one was definitely crazy. At the beginning of the race, I was hanging on. Of course I stalled at the start, so that was a bit of a shame, and then once the safety car came out, the team made the right call.

“They told me very confidently to box. I followed what they told me, and, in the end, we had a great race. It was still a bit tricky at the end; Alex was really quick. But really happy to be first,” he added.

Lindblad’s Sprint didn’t go to plan, as he picked up just one point for eighth, but his Feature Race was a completely different story. The Campos Racing driver clinically took advantage of his first pole of the season and quickly broke away from the chasing pack.

Behind him, Fornaroli dropped back, falling into the clutches of a charging Miyata. He was later slapped with a 10-second penalty for a start infringement, capping off a difficult Sprint and overall weekend for the Italian F3 champion. Kush Maini also dropped nine places off the start and never really recovered, finishing an eventual 16th place—one to forget for the Indian driver!

As the race played out, many hard-tire runners tried sticking it out for a safety car. While there were several on-track clashes, notably between Durksen and Browning, this opportunity never arose.

Instead, regular title contenders Verschoor, Dunne, and Jak Crawford fought their way back into the podium battle. As it turned out, Fornaroli crashed a few laps from the end, eventually bringing out a race-ending safety car, but it was too little too late for the race’s soft runners.

Though this meant that fans didn’t get the podium scrap they deserved, the cream really rose to the top at the end of Saturday’s Sprint. After Lindblad’s similarly impressive Feature win, Dunne leads the championship, but only by three points from Verschoor. With Lindblad, Crawford, and Browning also in close proximity, it’s all to play for in F2 this year.

Fresh off the back of Piastri's Spanish Grand Prix victory, F1 heads to Canada in two weeks’ time, but F2 is taking a few weeks off. The race for this season’s F2 crown resumes in Austria on June 27, 2025. [Quotes by Formula 2]