Valuable FIA Formula 2 weekend at the Italian venue with both Red Bull Junior Team drivers reaching the podium. Lindblad opened the weekend by finishing second in the Sprint Race, while Martí closed it with a superb recovery drive to third in a Sunday feature race that was pure survival
Campos Racing added two more podium finishes to its tally in the current FIA Formula 2 season during the eleventh round held this past weekend in Monza, as part of the Italian F1 Grand Prix. Pepe Martí secured his fifth podium of the 2025 campaign by bringing his Campos Racing-run car home in third place after a standout performance, keeping clear of the many incidents that peppered the race. His teammate Arvid Lindblad, also a member of the Red Bull Junior Team, stepped onto the rostrum on Saturday in the Sprint Race, where the Briton charged through the field to finish runner-up while also setting the fastest lap.
But let’s start from the beginning. On Friday, during free practice, Lindblad and Martí completed a combined 37 laps, with the Briton stopping the clock at 1m33.016s and the Spaniard at 1m33.194s, underlining the tight margins at the sharp end. Later in qualifying, the session was repeatedly disrupted by mechanical issues for several cars and two red flags. With just a couple of minutes remaining, Lindblad was in sixth with a best time of 1m32.881s, while Martí sat 13th on 1m33.148s. Both Campos Racing drivers were on improving laps, having set personal bests in sector one, when Richard Verschoor lost control at Lesmo and hit the barriers heavily. Thankfully unhurt, the Dutchman’s crash brought out another red flag, and the session was not resumed. This left Lindblad sixth and Martí 13th on the grid.
Saturday’s 21-lap Sprint Race, held at noon, saw plenty of early changes and contact, one involving Martí being tapped from behind at Lesmo, though the Spaniard was able to continue. On lap one, a Gabriele Minì off brought out the Safety Car. By then, Lindblad had already gained a place on the reversed grid and was running fourth. After four laps behind the Safety Car, racing resumed and Lindblad immediately fought his way into podium contention, using the slipstream to overtake Sami Meguetounif on the main straight under braking. Martí made a similar move on Luke Browning. Lindblad, pushing at fastest-lap pace, passed Dino Beganovic on lap nine to climb to second behind Leonardo Fornaroli. Martí too was making steady progress and by lap 12 he was up to ninth, having overtaken Jak Crawford among others. With six laps remaining, Fornaroli and Lindblad had broken away at the front, the Red Bull-liveried driver piling on the pressure in search of a mistake. Max Esterson’s engine failure triggered a Virtual Safety Car, but the race went green again with just two laps to go. Despite a concerted attack, Lindblad had to settle for second at the flag, also bagging the bonus point for fastest lap. Martí’s charge ended just shy of the points in ninth.
Sunday’s 30-lap Feature Race was just as dramatic. All drivers started on supersoft tyres before switching to mediums. The opening laps were tightly contested, with Lindblad gaining a place to run fifth, while Martí’s strong getaway put him up to ninth. He soon gained another spot when Victor Martins went wide attempting to pass Lindblad at Lesmo, allowing Martí to slip through into seventh. Pit stops began as early as lap six, but a clash between Lindblad and Alex Dunne at the Variante della Roggia eliminated the latter and brought out the Safety Car, triggering a wave of pit stops. The restart proved chaotic: Lindblad, struggling with brake issues, couldn’t avoid Roman Stanek at the first chicane, taking them both out and bringing back the Safety Car. Martí found himself up to fourth at this point. Another restart saw Meguetounif also suffer brake problems, again prompting a Safety Car. With 13 laps to go, racing resumed once more. Martí’s next rival for the podium was Rafael Villagómez, the Mexican defending hard. After several attempts, Martí finally made the move stick at the first chicane on lap 28. His next target was Joshua Dürksen, and the Spaniard threw everything at the Paraguayan. In the final lap they even made slight contact, but both emerged unscathed, Martí clinching third place at the flag, just three tenths behind Dürksen.
After the Italian round, Martí and Lindblad sit sixth and seventh in the Drivers’ Championship with 112 and 101 points respectively. Campos Racing remains third in the Teams’ standings with 213 points.
The championship now pauses for two weeks before heading to Azerbaijan for the third-to-last round of the season. The Baku City Circuit will mark the final European race before the campaign concludes with the final two rounds in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Pepe Martí (Campos Racing driver in FIA Formula 2): “I’m happy with the weekend although overall it didn’t go as we wanted. Everything started quite well with a good free practice on Friday, I felt quite comfortable, decent. As a team we had things to improve but even so we were in a competitive position. Then qualifying was full of red flags and incidents and we couldn’t extract the car’s maximum potential. On the last lap we were on very competitive times but unfortunately another red flag came out and I couldn’t complete the lap, so we qualified 13th. In Saturday’s race we managed a good recovery. Even though fewer points are awarded in the Sprint and we couldn’t score, it was a solid race. I got a pretty good start, had a decent opening lap, made up several places and finished 8th. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake that cost us positions and we ended up outside the points. In today’s Sunday race it really was a good one. Right from the start I got off well, positioned myself in ninth, gaining four places. I had a strong pace and overall felt very comfortable. We kept moving forward and managed to get through all the incidents, which was also difficult, and little by little we found ourselves in fourth. In the final laps I pulled off a good overtake to move into third and maybe I was just one lap short of fighting for second place. Still, from 13th to 3rd is a very good race. Now it’s time to look ahead to Baku, where we’ll try to keep this momentum and fight for more results like this.”
